Closer To Nowhere Quotes

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this, as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it - books, bricks, grief - it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth? How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe also troubled - roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

He straightened and turned to find Andrew had shifted closer. There was nowhere for Neil to stand except up against Andrew, but somehow Neil didn't mind. They'd been apart for seven weeks but Neil keenly remembered why he'd stayed. He remembered this unyielding, unquestioning weight that could hold him and all of his problems up without breaking a sweat. For the first time in months he could finally breathe again. It was such a relief it was frightening; Neil hadn't meant to lean on Andrew so much.

But “nowhere” does not mean nothing; rather, region in general lies therein, and disclosedness of the world in general for essentially spatial being-in. Therefore, what is threatening cannot come closer from a definite direction within nearness, it is already “there” - and yet nowhere. It is so near that it is oppressive and takes one’s breath - and yet it is nowhere.

We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called “yeller” in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark. I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.

She came closer, reaching up to inspect the cut on my brow, her breasts so close to my chest, the heat of her body warmed me right through our clothes. “Jason, we need to get you to a hospital. Your brain could be swelling.” Oh, something was swelling for sure, but it was nowhere near my brain.

One clear night while the others slept, I climbed the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it, the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long whispering night, waiting for something, a sign, the approach of a distant light, and I imagined you coming closer, the dark waves of your hair mingling with the sea, and the dark became desire, and desire the arriving light. The nearness, the momentary warmth of you as I stood on that lonely height watching the slow swells of the sea break on the shore and turn briefly into glass and disappear... Why did I believe you would come out of nowhere? Why with all that the world offers would you come only because I was here?

Aim at nothing, and you get nowhere. Aim at something, and even in long odds you often get closer than you would otherwise.

The hand that rested on my shoulder rubbed it a bit, comfortingly. Then it gave my shoulder a little squeeze. I leaned into him. Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin. "Rory," he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere. For the first few seconds, he didn't move-he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight. I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn't stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold-now it was warm. Now it was alive. "So Thorpe says that-Seriously?" Callum was in the doorway. Stephen mumbled what I think was a very obscene word right against my mouth. "You realize I now owe Boo five pounds?" Callum said. "Boo! I owe you five pounds!

So at the heart of all things is the germ of their overthrow; the closer you are to the heart, the closer to the reversal. Nowhere to go but down. You reach the core and then you're blown away--

It would have been the middle of nowhere if it had been closer to other places.

Release my horse!" I ordered, infuriated with him and wary of both the large, energetic beast and its rider. "No," Steldor snapped. "You're coming back with me." Gripping my reins, he permitted his stallion to move forward in the direction of the city, my mount obediently following. Unwilling to give in to him, I slid from my horse's back. "I don't think I will return just yet, Your Majesty." With an exasperated sigh, he dismounted and strode toward me.As he did, he took in my preposterous appearance. "What are you doing?" he demanded, stopping in his tracks. "You're out in the middle of nowhere, by yourself, dressed like a man and riding your father's horse! Have you gone mad, woman?" He continued to scrutinize me, and his incredulity transformed itself into a frown. "And just where did you get the belt and breeches?" As realizatin struck, he sarcastically added, "Just my luck that you would decide to get into my trousers when I wasn't there yo enjoy it." My cheeks burned at his crude comment, and had I been a little closer, I would likely have dealt him a second slap. At the same time, I knew his assessment was accurate. "I was just going for a ride.I have the right to some fresh air," I asserted, hands upon my hips. Steldor gave a short, scathing laugh. "Not like this you don't.Now get on your horse.

When it’s cold and raining, you are more beautiful. And the snow brings me even closer to your lips. The inner secret, that which was never born, you are that freshness, and I am with you now. I can’t explain the goings, or the comings. You enter suddenly, and I am nowhere again. Inside the majesty.

Russkie, promise me a simple thing?" Out of the blue when they had finished, after a mouthful from the mug. Dan seemed relaxed, leaning on his side. Resting back, savoring the taste, Vadim turned his head to look at Dan. Oh, that body. The effect it had on him, all the time, even when Dan wasn't there. Twelve months. "Promise what?" Sometimes, that kind of thing was about letters. Tell my girl I love her. Tell my mother I didn't suffer. Almost painful. Letters. Words that would hurt worse than the killing bullet. "Simple." Dan nodded, "if I'm unlucky, and if you find my body, will you bury it? Some rocks would do, I can't stand the thought of carrion's. As if that mattered, eh? I'd be fucking dead." Dan shrugged, tossed a grin towards the other, made light of an entirely far too heavy situation. He took the bottle once more, washing down the taste of death and decay, chasing away unbidden images. Vadim felt a shudder race over his skin. The thought of death chilled him to the bone, like a premonition. For a moment he saw himself stagger through enemy territory, looking for something that had been Dan. Minefields, snipers, fucking Hind hellfire. He might be able to track him. He might be able to guess where he had gone, where he had fallen. He had found the occasional pilot. But he had had help. Finding a dead man in a country full of dead people was more of a challenge. "I'll send you home," he murmured. Stay alive, he thought. Stay alive like you are now. I don't want to carry your rotting body to fucking Kabul and hand myself in to whatever bastard is your superior or handler there, but it must be Kabul. I can't hand myself over. But I will. Fuck you. He felt his face twitch, and turned away, breathing. "No, I have no home anymore." Dan's hand stopped Vadim from turning over fully. Fingers digging into the muscular thigh. "Not my brother's family. Nowhere to send the body to. Forget it." Grip tightening while he moved closer. Ignored the heat, the damned fan and its monotonous creaking, pressed his body behind the other. "You're as close to a fucking home as I get.

However, Dorian's acceptance of Andrew only went so far. And it was nowhere near enough to allow him this close to Ashaya. "What are you doing here?" Though SnowDancer and DarkRiver had free range over each other's territory, the wolves preferred to stick to the higher elevations. Andrew's eyes shifted over Dorian's shoulder. "I can smell her." "Don't." The younger male grinned. "She's all over you, too. Is she as sexy as she smells?" Dorian knew Andrew was deliberately jerking his chain. "Why don't you come closer and find out?" "Do I look stupid?" "You look like a wolf." Andrew bared his teeth. "I thought we were friends." "And I thought you got posted back to San Diego." The other man shrugged. "I came back to visit my baby sister, check up on that mate of hers." "She's fine," Dorian said, relaxing a little at Andrew's deliberately nonaggressive stance. "I've been keeping an eye on her." "Yeah, I know. She's always muttering about how she has three over protective morons for brothers now. Andrew snorted. "Wait till she has a baby girl. I can't exactly see Judd being any less feral.

As I came down from the mountain, I recalled how, not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources—it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources. Going nowhere, as Cohen had shown me, is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one’s senses. I

I sit on it's edge, looking down at the man who feels like he just materialized out of nowhere. My head still swims with euphoria from the moment...a moment I was just in with one man whilst sleeping next to another. Suddenly feeling dirty, I pull the sheets wrapped in front of my body closer.

The Freshness When it's cold and raining, you are more beautiful. And the snow brings me even closer to your lips. The inner secret, that which was never born, you are that freshness, and I am with you now. I can't explain the goings, or the comings. You enter suddenly, and I am nowhere again. Inside the majesty.

I don't know that we are ever really okay in life, but there are times when we feel closer to it - when we don't remember what it feels like to suffer. During these times we are moving forward in the void, forgetting we are going nowhere, so the void feels less daunting. We feel like we are handling shit. We are handling shit and doing work on ourselves. And then another person comes in, and meets us thee, and we think we can handle it. We think we can handle it, because in that moment we feel that we can handle anything.

I don't know that we are ever really okay in life, but there are times when we feel closer to it - when we don't remember what it feels like to suffer. During these times we are moving forward in the void, forgetting we are going nowhere, so the void feels less daunting. We feel like we are handling shit. We are handling shit and doing work on ourselves. And then another person comes in, and meets us there, and we think we can handle it. We think we can handle it, because in that moment we feel that we can handle anything.

As nearly all great fortunes in America are made on land stolen while the public's back is turned — and by people who want money but don't want to work for it, by men who use the title of builder and yet never have driven a nail into a board — nowhere was the relationship between politician and merchant closer than at the time the subways of New York were built.

Nova?” he said, so quietly she almost thought she imagined it. She turned her head up. Adrian held her gaze for all of half a second, before he leaned down and kissed her. Nova gasped against his mouth, overcome not just with surprise, but also by the current that jolted through every nerve. Adrian pulled away, worried again. His eyes were a question. His lips an invitation. Nova’s mouth felt abandoned. The kiss had been too short and already her hands were itching to touch him, her entire body aching to move closer. Though she knew what she had to do and she knew this was a terrible idea, she reached her hand behind his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers. The kiss escalated fast. Hesitant curiosity and then, from nowhere, a desperate, unfulfilled need. To be closer. To kiss deeper. To touch his face, his neck, his hair. Adrian’s arms circled her waist and he pulled her across him, turning Nova’s body so she was cocooned in his arms.

He pulled her a little closer and leaned his head toward her ear. 'I have traveled the world over these last months, but nowhere, on no continent, in no country, have I ever seen anyone half so beautiful as you.

I remember screaming, and shouting. So much shouting and all of it was coming from me. I knocked down the machines. I ripped out the tubing attached to my veins. They wouldn’t stop getting closer though. Closer and closer. Descending. The nurses and the orderlies. Like they were going to suck my soul right out of my body. Like they were dementors – the soul-sucking creatures from Harry Potter. Instead of performing the Dementor’s Kiss, however, those creatures stuck me with a needle. It came out of nowhere.

The line came from a legend about a hunter who was relating an experience he had on safari. “This huge lion was racing toward me, and all my gun bearers had fled. I had no gun, and there was nowhere to hide. Not a bush or a tree in sight. And the beast was charging straight at me, coming closer and closer.” “How did you escape?” a listener asked. “I ran over to the nearest tree and climbed it.” “But you said there were no trees.” “You don’t understand. There has to be a tree!” And I have to find it, Robert thought. He

I think I'll say goodnight here," Jack said. "My dad's not so bad." "Oh yeah,he was great...right up until the time I started dating his daughter." I'd seen how my dad had become considerably colder toward Jack. There were little clues,like the other evening when out of nowhere he told Jack about how every football player he went to high school with had gotten fat after graduation.We'd been talking about what to make for dinner. "Okay," I said. "Maybe next time." I leaned over to peck him on the cheek, but he grabbed my face in both of his hands and kissed me. His breath tasted like the mints the chaperones had passed out when the dance was over, and when he parted his lips against mine, I shivered, but not because of the cold. I pressed against him even more and hoped the dark inside the car obscured my dad's view. But I knew better than to push it.As I was about to break away,Jack put his hands behind my waist and pulled me even closer,practically lifting me over the center console,so I was sitting in his lap. I pulled back. "My dad's going to love that-" He put his finger over my lips, cutting me off. "Please don't talk about your dad when I'm kissing you. Besides, unless he's enacted a law against it-" "Which he may well do after tonight," I interrupted. He smiled and then brought my face to his again for a few moments before finally releasing me. "After that kiss,we'd better dream of the same thing tonight," he said with a smirk. My face got even warmer,but I tried to speak in a calm voice. "I'll probably dream my usual dream,where I show up to school without any clothes on." "Me too." Jack chuckled.I gave his shoulder a playful shove.

The more screen-time you consume on your device, the more revenue can the big tech make. So, your health, your wellbeing, your sanity and serenity are nowhere closer to their priorities. That's why, your health is in your hands, your serenity is in your hands, your sanity is in your hands.

I opened myself up to the kiss and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Putting all my secret emotions and tender feelings into the embrace, I wound my arms around his neck and slid my hands into his hair. Pulling his body that much closer to mine, I embraced him with all the warmth and affection that I wouldn’t allow myself to express verbally. He paused, shocked for a brief instant, and then quickly adjusted his approach, escalating into a passionate frenzy. I shocked myself by matching his energy. I ran my hands up his powerful arms and shoulders and then down his chest. My senses were in turmoil. I felt wild. Eager. I clutched at his shirt. I couldn’t get close enough to him. He even smelled delicious. You’d think that several days of being chased by strange creatures and hiking through a mysterious kingdom would make him smell bad. In fact, I wanted him to smell bad. I’m sure I did. I mean, how can you expect a girl to be fresh as a daisy while traipsing through the jungle and getting chased by monkeys. It’s just not possible. I desperately wanted him to have some fault. Some weakness. Some…imperfection. But Ren smelled amazing-like waterfalls, a warm summer day, and sandalwood trees all wrapped up in a sizzling, hot guy. How could a girl defend herself from a perfect onslaught delivered by a pefect person? I gave up and let Mr. Wonderful take control of my senses. My blood burned, my heart thundered, my need for him quickened, and I lost all track of time in his arms. All I was aware of was Ren. His lips. His body. His soul. I wanted all of him. Eventually, he put his hands on my shoulders and gently separated us. I was surprised that he had the strength of will to stop because I was nowhere near being able to. I blinked my eyes open in a daze. We were both breathing hard. “That was…enlightening,” he breathed. “Thank you, Kelsey.” I blinked. The passion that had dulled my mind dissipated in an instant, and my mind sharply focused on a new feeling. Irritation. “Thank you? Thank you! Of all the-“ I slammed up the steps angrily and then spun around to look down at him. “No! Thank you, Ren!” My hands slashed at the air. “Now you got what you wanted, so leave me alone!” I ran up the stairs quickly to put some distance between us. Enlightening? What was that about? Was he testing me? Giving me a one-to-ten score on my kissing ability? Of all the nerve? I was glad that I was mad. I could shove all the other emotions into the back of my mind and just focus on the anger, the indignation. He leapt up the stairs two at a time. “That’s not all I want, Kelsey. That’s for sure.” “Well, I no longer care about what you want!” He shot me a knowing look and raised an eyebrow. Then, he lifted his foot out of the opening, placed it on the dirt, and instantly changed back into a tiger. I laughed mockingly. “Ha!” I tripped over a stone but quickly found my footing. “Serves you right!” I shouted angrily and stumbled blindly along the dim path. After figuring out where to go, I marched off in a huff. “Come on, Fanindra. Let’s go find Mr. Kadam.

Just inside the doorway he puts down the bags, motions her to stand by them a minute. He saunters out ahead, carefully casual. Peers up one way, down the other. Nothing. The street's dead to the world. Then suddenly, from nowhere, ping! Something flicks off the wall just behind him, flops at his feet like a dead bug. He doesn't bend down to look closer, he can tell what kind of a bug it is all right. He's seen that kind of bug before, plenty of times. No flash, no report, to show which direction it came from. Silencer, of course. He hasn't moved. Fsssh! and a bee or wasp in a hurry strokes by his cheek, tingles, draws a drop of slow blood. Another pokk! from the wall, another bug rolling over. The insect-world seems very streamlined, very self-destructive, tonight. ("Jane Brown's Body")

You let me kiss you, but you won't let me take you out on a date." He shook his head. "Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe I need to convince you that you can't live without me." She raised her brows. "How are you going to do that?" "I'll show you." He pressed closer as his hands roamed down her body. "But it might take all night. That okay with you?" "I've got nowhere else to be....

Maybe it was that I was broken. Maybe it was just that I was out of my mind. But it occurred to me that I was going to kiss him. The thought just arrived, certain knowledge, delivered from some greater, more knowledgeable place. I was going to kiss him. Stephen would not want to kiss me. He would back up in horror. And yet, I was still going to do it. I reached over, and I put my hand against his chest, then I moved closer. I could feel just the very tips of the gentle stubble on his cheek brushing against my skin. “Rory,” he said. But it was a quiet protest, and it went nowhere. For the first few seconds, he didn’t move—he accepted the kiss like you might accept a spoonful of medicine. Then I heard it, a sigh, like he had finally set down a heavy weight. “I was pretty sure we were both kind of terrified, but I was completely sure that we were both doing this. We kissed slowly, very deliberately, coming together and then pulling apart and looking at each other. Then each kiss got longer, and then it didn’t stop. Stephen put his hand just under the edge of my shirt, holding it on the spot where the scar was. Sometimes the skin around the scar got cold—now it was warm. Now it was alive.

Peter and I were downstairs alone, the last two people to be picked up. We were sitting on the couch. I kept texting my dad, Where are uuuuuu? Peter was playing a game on his phone. And then, out of nowhere, he said, “Your hair smells like coconuts.” We weren’t even sitting that close. I said, “Really? You can smell it from there?” He scooted closer and took a sniff, nodding. “Yeah, it reminds me of Hawaii or something.” “Thanks!” I said. I wasn’t positive it was a compliment, but it seemed like enough of one to say thanks. “I’ve been switching between this coconut one and my sister’s baby shampoo, to do an experiment on which makes my hair softer--” Then Peter Kavinsky leaned right in and kissed me, and I was stunned. I’d never thought of him any kind of way before that kiss. He was too pretty, too smooth. Not my type of boy at all. But after he kissed me, he was all I could think about for months after.

That was the night he got up and went to the boys' division; perhaps he was looking for his history in the big room where all the boys slept, but what he found instead was Dr. Larch kissing every boy a late good night. Homer imagined then that Dr. Larch had kissed him like that, when he'd been small; Homer could not have imagined how those kisses, even now, were still kisses meant for him. They were kisses seeking Homer Wells. That was the same night that he saw the lynx on the barren, unplanted hillside—glazed with snow that had thawed and then refrozen into a thick crust. Homer had stepped outside for just a minute; after witnessing the kisses, he desired the bracing air. It was a Canada lynx—a dark, gunmetal gray against the lighter gray of the moonlit snow, its wildcat stench so strong Homer gagged to srnell the thing. Its wildcat sense was keen enough to keep it treading within a single leap's distance of the safety of the woods. The lynx was crossing the brow of the hill when it began to slide; its claws couldn't grip the crust of the snow, and the hill had suddenly grown steeper. The cat moved from the dull moonlight into the sharper light from Nurse Angela's office window; it could not help its sideways descent. It traveled closer to the orphanage than it would ever have chosen to come, its ferocious death smell clashing with the freezing cold. The lynx's helplessness on the ice had rendered its expression both terrified; and resigned; both madness and fatalism were caught in the cat's fierce, yellow eyes and in its involuntary, spitting cough as it slid on, actually bumping against the hospital before its claws could find a purchase on the crusted snow. It spit its rage at Homer Wells, as if Homer had caused its unwilling descent. Its breath had frozen on its chin whiskers and its tufted ears were beaded with ice. The panicked animal tried to dash up the hill; it was less than halfway up when it began to slide down again, drawn toward the orphanage against its will. When it set out from the bottom of the hill a second time, the lynx was panting; it ran diagonally uphill, slipping but catching itself, and slipping again, finally escaping into the softer snow in the woods— nowhere near where it had meant to go; yet the lynx would accept any route of escape from the dark hospital. Homer Wells, staring into the woods after the departed lynx, did not imagine that he would ever leave St. Cloud's more easily.

I don’t know that we are ever really okay in life, but there are times when we feel closer to it—when we don’t remember what it feels like to suffer. During these times we are moving forward in the void, forgetting we are going nowhere, so the void feels less daunting. We feel like we are handling shit. We are handling shit and doing work on ourselves. And then another person comes in, and meets us there, and we think we can handle it. We think we can handle it, because in that moment we feel that we can handle anything.

Do you know why I remembered you?” he asked me suddenly. It was a question so out of nowhere that it took me a little while to figure out what he was talking about. “You mean from Latin Convention?” “Yeah.” “Was it my Coliseum model?” I was only half-joking. Steven had helped me build it; it had been pretty impressive. “No.” Cam ran his hand through his hair. He wouldn’t look at me. “It’s because I thought you were really pretty. Like, maybe the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.” I laughed. In the car, it sounded really loud. “Yeah, right. Nice try, Sextus.” “I mean it,” he insisted, his voice rising. “You’re making that up.” I didn’t believe it could be true. I didn’t want to let myself believe it. With the boys any compliment like this would always be the first part of a joke. He shook his head, lips tight. He was offended that I didn’t believe him. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. I just didn’t see how it could be true. It was almost mean of him to lie about it. I knew what I looked like back then, and I wasn’t the prettiest girl anybody had ever seen, not with my thick glasses and chubby cheeks and little-girl body. Cam looked me in the eyes then. “The first day, you wore a blue dress. It was, like, corduroy or something. It made your eyes look really blue.” “My eyes are gray,” I said. “Yes, but that dress made them look blue.” He looked so sweet, the way he watched me, waiting for my reaction. His cheeks were flushed peach. I swallowed hard and said, “Why didn’t you come up to me?” He shrugged. “You were always with your friends. I watched you that whole week, trying to get up the nerve. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you at the bonfire that night. Pretty bizarre, huh?” Cam laughed, but he sounded embarrassed. “Pretty bizarre,” I echoed. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed me. With Taylor by my side, who would have even bothered to look at me? “I almost messed up my Catullus speech on purpose, so you’d win,” he said, remembering. He inched a little closer to me. “I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. I reached out and touched his arm. My hand shook. “I wish you had come up to me.” That’s when he dipped his head low and kissed me. I didn’t let go of the door handle. All I could think was, I wish this had been my first kiss.

There was still some time before the train opened its doors for boarding, yet passengers were hurriedly buying boxed dinners, snacks, cans of beer, and magazines at the kiosk. Some had white iPod headphones in their ears, already off in their own little worlds. Others palmed smartphones, thumbing out texts, some talking so loudly into their phones that their voices rose above the blaring PA announcements. Tsukuru spotted a young couple, seated close together on a bench, happily sharing secrets. A pair of sleepy-looking five- or six-year-old twin boys, with their mother and father dragging them along by their hands, were whisked past where Tsukuru sat. The boys clutched small game devices. Two young foreign men hefted heavy-looking backpacks, while a young woman was lugging a cello case. A woman with a stunning profile passed by. Everyone was boarding a night train, heading to a far-off destination. Tsukuru envied them. At least they had a place they needed to go to. Tsukuru Tazaki had no place he needed to go. He realized that he had never actually been to Matsumoto, or Kofu. Or Shiojiri. Not even to the much closer town of Hachioji. He had watched countless express trains for Matsumoto depart from this platform, but it had never occurred to him that there was a possibility he could board one. Until now he had never thought of it. Why is that? he wondered. Tsukuru imagined himself boarding this train and heading for Matsumoto. It wasn’t exactly impossible. And it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. He’d suddenly gotten it into his head, after all, to take off for Finland, so why not Matsumoto? What sort of town was it? he wondered. What kind of lives did people lead there? But he shook his head and erased these thoughts. Tomorrow morning it would be impossible to get back to Tokyo in time for work. He knew that much without consulting the timetable. And he was meeting Sara tomorrow night. It was a very important day for him. He couldn’t just take off for Matsumoto on a whim. He drank the rest of his now-lukewarm coffee and tossed the paper cup into a nearby garbage bin. Tsukuru Tazaki had nowhere he had to go. This was like a running theme of his life. He had no place he had to go to, no place to come back to. He never did, and he didn’t now.

How do you remain an individual when you are also part of so powerfully driven a pair?” “Irrational or justified, it is what it is.” Gideon was realizing the logic of that for himself even as he spoke the words. “Perhaps, in time, it will be less acute. I have no desire to rob you of your individuality, nor do I wish to lose my own. It is difficult for me as well . . . I have been so solitary throughout my lifetime, and now, to be suddenly given such riveting company . . . I fear I cannot do you the justice you deserve. And for you it will be worse; with the influx of power you are beginning to experience it will be taxing, to say the least.” “I know.” Legna reached up and splayed her palms over the dark silk covering his chest. “I suppose at some point, if I start to go crazy, you are going to have to knock me out or tie me up or something.” “Hmm. The latter has possibilities,” he mused with a growling smile that erased the tension in his face. Legna laughed, giving him a shove. “Gideon, you are nothing but an ancient pervert,” she teased him. “And this is an issue because . . . ?” “You are horrible!” She pushed away from him, gaining her feet. He reached to take her hand, pulling her closer once more and continuing to do so until she had nowhere else to go but his lap. She took the seat, her voluminous skirts spreading over them both. “I will forgive you, this time,” she conceded. “Thank you,” he said with honest graciousness. “Now, my beauty, tell me what you would like to do to get to know me better. I find myself looking forward to your discoveries.” “Well, I did not think of anything specific. I imagined time would fill itself.” “That is dangerously liberal, sweet. If you leave it up to the natural course of things, I can tell you exactly what we will end up doing.” Legna giggled, blushing because she realized he was right. Even just sitting in his lap and talking as she was, she could feel the mutual awareness that sparked between them, constantly simmering and waiting for just a little more heat to bring them up to the boiling point. “Very well, I am open to suggestions,” she invited. “Again, too liberal,” he teased, his eyes twinkling with mischievous starlight. “You are incorrigible. I never realized you were a sex fiend, Gideon.” “I am now,” he amended, drawing a finger down the slope of her nose.

I was very moved by the Gauguin carvings. But then out of nowhere there was Van Gogh. Three self-portraits. I walked up to one; it was protected with glass. I could see my reflection. And I thought: Oh my God.” Less shakes his head, and his eyes widen as he relives the moment. “I look just like Van Gogh.” Javier laughs, his hand to his smile. “Before the ear, I think.” “I thought, I’ve gone crazy,” Less goes on. “But…I’ve already outlived him by over a decade!” Javier tilts his head, a cocker Spaniard. “Arthur, how old are you?” Deep breath. “I’m forty-nine.” Javier moves closer to peer at him; he smells of cigarettes and vanilla, like Less’s grandmother. “How funny. I am also forty-nine.” “No,” Less says, truly bewildered. There is not a line on Javier’s face. “I thought you were midthirties.” “That is a lie. But it is a nice lie. And you do not look close to fifty.” Less smiles. “My birthday is in one week.” “Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young.” “Yes! It’s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.

Holy hell. All Michaels saw was a tall, walking Adonis. Decked out in leather except for the tight, black shirt hugging his thick chest. As he got closer his eyes appeared dark and mysterious, he seemed to keep his eyes on target but take in everything around him too. People watched him, but didn’t engage him. It was obvious he wasn’t a criminal because of the gold badge hanging around his neck, but damn he looked like he was on his way to kick someone’s ass. Moving through the precinct like he was the Captain. Confident and sure. He wasn’t frowning but he damn sure wasn’t smiling or giving off an approachable vibe. Michaels stood and swallowed hard. Jesus. The man had to be six-foot-three, maybe -four. Taller than his own six one. It was all the hair. Oh, my damn. That beard, that looked course but possibly soft to touch. Damn, he hoped so. Trimmed neatly with a smattering of grays, at least five to six inches of hair beneath his chin. Enough to pull. Shit. “We all thought you loved yourself, Michaels,” Day said, out of nowhere, watching along with everyone else as the bounty hunter approached. Michaels frowned at his Lieutenant. It really was not the fuckin’ time.  Day’s eyes bugged and Michaels turned back just in time to see what everyone else did as Judge reached for the door. Day leaned toward God and hissed, “Why the fuck is he bringing a horse into our office?

Maddie spun to her left - looked back to the cliff - but it was too late. He was already there, standing in front of her. The gun was trained on the center of her chest, and the look on Stefan's face was pure, unadulterated loathing. "You should have forgotten about the phone," he said. Maddie had seen evil up close; she'd witnessed terror and rage, and she knew better than most people the effect that pure hate can have on the human body. First, in Maddie's experience, it was terrible for your skin. (If there was one thing a zit loved, it was stress. Second, it could do awful things to your eyes. They got glossy, but not with tears, with wild and untamed fury. Finally, that much adrenaline might make you strong enough to lift a Toyota off a toddler or whatever, but it could also make your hands shake and your heart race. That's how Stefan looked. His eyes were too wide, his lips were too dry, and his grip was too hard on the gun. Maddie didn't scream. Or plead. Or cry. She just rolled her eyes and said, "But I'm a teenage girl. We're addicted to our phones, or haven't you heard?" She could feel the boulder at her back, as Stefan stepped closer, she knew there was nowhere to go. So she tensed. "You think you are so smart." Stefan's accent was thicker. The words were cold. "Well, not to brag, but I am number one in my class. Does it matter if you're the only one in your class?" she asked. "I don't know about -" "Shut up!" he yelled, limping closer.

After two weeks came the first letter from Alexander. Tatiasha, Can there be anything harder than this? Missing you is a physical aching that grips me early in the morning and does not leave me, not even as I draw my last waking breath. My solace in these waning empty summer days is the knowledge that you’re safe, and alive, and healthy, and that the worst that you have to go through is serfdom for four well-meaning old women. The wood piles I’ve left are the lightest in the front. The heaviest ones are for the winter. Use them last, and if you need help carrying them, God help me, ask Vova. Don’t hurt yourself. And don’t fill the water pails all the way to the top. They’re too heavy. Getting back was rough, and as soon as I came back, I was sent right out to the Neva, where for six days we planned our attack and then made a move in boats across the river and were completely crushed in two hours. We didn’t stand a chance. The Germans bombed the boats with the Vanyushas, their version of my rocket launcher, the boats all sank. We were left with a thousand fewer men and were no closer to crossing the river. We’re now looking at other places we can cross. I’m fine, except for the fact that it’s rained here for ten days straight and I’ve been hip deep in mud for all that time. There is nowhere to sleep, except in the mud. We put our trench coats down and hope it stops raining soon. All black and wet, I almost felt sorry for myself until I thought of you during the blockade. I’ve decided to do that from now on. Every time I think I have it so tough, I’m going to think of you burying your sister in Lake Ladoga. I wish you had been given a lighter cross than Leningrad to carry through your life. Things are going to be relatively quiet here for the next few weeks, until we regroup. Yesterday a bomb fell in the commandant’s bunker. The commandant wasn’t there at the time. Yet the anxiety doesn’t go away. When is it going to come again? I play cards and soccer. And I smoke. And I think of you. I sent you money. Go to Molotov at the end of August. Don’t forget to eat well, my warm bun, my midnight sun, and kiss your hand for me, right in the palm and then press it against your heart. Alexander Tatiana read Alexander’s letter a hundred times, memorizing every word. She slept with her face on the letter, which renewed her strength.

While thus engaged, I heard in a side-room the softest possible jingle of bracelets, crackle of dress, and footfall; and I felt certain that two curious eyes were watching me through a small opening of the window. All at once there flashed upon my memory a pair of eyes,—a pair of large eyes, beaming with trust, simplicity, and girlhood's love,—black pupils,—thick dark eyelashes,—a calm fixed gaze. Suddenly some unseen force squeezed my heart in an iron grip, and it throbbed with intense pain. I returned to my house, but the pain clung to me. Whether I read, wrote, or did any other work, I could not shake that weight off my heart; a heavy load seemed to be always swinging from my heart-strings. In the evening, calming myself a little, I began to reflect: ‘What ails me?’ From within came the question: ‘Where is your Surabala now?’ I replied: ‘I gave her up of my free will. Surely I did not expect her to wait for me for ever.’ But something kept saying: ‘Then you could have got her merely for the asking. Now you have not the right to look at her even once, do what you will. That Surabala of your boyhood may come very close to you; you may hear the jingle of her bracelets; you may breathe the air embalmed by the essence of her hair,—but there will always be a wall between you two.’ I answered: ‘Be it so. What is Surabala to me?’ My heart rejoined: ‘To-day Surabala is nobody to you. But what might she not have been to you?’ Ah! that's true. What might she not have been to me? Dearest to me of all things, closer to me than the world besides, the sharer of all my life's joys and sorrows,—she might have been. And now, she is so distant, so much of a stranger, that to look on her is forbidden, to talk with her is improper, and to think of her is a sin!—while this Ram Lochan, coming suddenly from nowhere, has muttered a few set religious texts, and in one swoop has carried off Surabala from the rest of mankind! I have not come to preach a new ethical code, or to revolutionise society; I have no wish to tear asunder domestic ties. I am only expressing the exact working of my mind, though it may not be reasonable. I could not by any means banish from my mind the sense that Surabala, reigning there within shelter of Ram Lochan's home, was mine far more than his. The thought was, I admit, unreasonable and improper,—but it was not unnatural.

As for myself, what has died for me has died, so to speak, into my own heart: when I looked for him, the person who vanished has collected himself strangely and so surprisingly in me, and it was so moving to feel he was now only there that my enthusiasm for serving his new existence, for deepening and glorifying it, took the upper hand almost at the very moment when pain would otherwise have invaded and devastated the whole landscape of my spirit. When I remember how I—often with the utmost difficulty in understanding and accepting each other—loved my father! Often, in childhood, my mind became confused and my heart grew numb at the mere thought that someday he might no longer be; my existence seemed to me so wholly conditioned through him (my existence, which from the start was pointed in such a different direction!) that his departure was to my innermost self synonymous with my own destruction …, but so deeply is death rooted in the essence of love that (if only we are cognizant of death without letting ourselves be misled by the uglinesses and suspicions that have been attached to it) it nowhere contradicts love: where, after all, can it drive out someone whom we have carried unsayably in our heart except into this very heart, where would the “idea” of this loved being exist, and his unceasing influence (: for how could that cease which even while he lived with us was more and more independent of his tangible presence) … where would this always secret influence be more secure than in us?! Where can we come closer to it, where more purely celebrate it, when obey it better, than when it appears combined with our own voices, as if our heart had learned a new language, a new song, a new strength! (To Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouy, January 6, 1923)

I shoot up out of my chair. “It’s Bree. Hide the board!” Everyone hops out of their chairs and starts scrambling around and bumping into each other like a classic cartoon. We hear the door shut behind her, and the whiteboard is still standing in the middle of the kitchen like a lit-up marquee. I hiss at Jamal, “Get rid of it!” His eyes are wide orbs, head whipping around in all directions. “Where? In the utensil drawer? Up my shirt?! There’s nowhere! That thing is huge!” “LADY IN THE HOUSE!” Bree shouts from the entryway. The sound of her tennis shoes getting kicked off echoes around the room, and my heart races up my throat. Her name is pasted all over that whiteboard along with phrases like “first kiss—keep it light” and “entwined hand-holding” and “dirty talk about her hair”. Yeah…I’m not sure about that last one, but we’ll see. Basically, it’s all laid out there—the most incriminating board in the world. If Bree sees this thing, it’s all over for me. “Erase it!” Price whispers frantically. “No, we didn’t write it down anywhere else! We’ll lose all the ideas.” I can hear Bree’s footsteps getting closer. “Nathan? Are you home?” “Uh—yeah! In the kitchen.” Jamal tosses me a look like I’m an idiot for announcing our location, but what am I supposed to do? Stand very still and pretend we’re not all huddled in here having a Baby-Sitter’s Club re-enactment? She would find us, and that would look even worse after keeping quiet. “Just flip it over!” I tell anyone who’s not running in a circle chasing his tail. As Lawrence flips the whiteboard, Price tells us all to act natural. So of course, the second Bree rounds the corner, I hop up on the table, Jamal rests his elbow on the wall and leans his head on his hand, and Lawrence just plops down on the floor and pretends to stretch. Derek can’t decide what to do so he’s caught mid-circle. We all have fake smiles plastered on. Our acting is shit. Bree freezes, blinking at the sight of each of us not acting at all natural. “Whatcha guys doing?” Her hair is a cute messy bun of curls on the top of her head and she’s wearing her favorite joggers with one of my old LA Sharks hoodies, which she stole from my closet a long time ago. It swallows her whole, but since she just came from the studio, I know there is a tight leotard under it. I can barely find her in all that material, and yet she’s still the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. Just her presence in this room feels like finally getting hooked up to oxygen after days of not being able to breathe deeply. We all respond to Bree’s question at the same time but with different answers. It’s highly suspicious and likely what makes her eyes dart to the whiteboard. Sweat gathers on my spine. “What’s with the whiteboard?” she asks, taking a step toward it. I hop off the table and get in her path. “Huh? Oh, it’s…nothing.” She laughs and tries to look around me. I pretend to stretch so she can’t see. “It doesn’t look like nothing. What? Are you guys drawing boobies on that board or something? You look so guilty.” “Ah—you caught us! Lots of illustrated boobs drawn on that board. You don’t want to see it.” She pauses, a fading smile hovering on her lips, and her eyes look up to meet mine. “For real—what’s going on? Why can’t I see it?” She doesn’t believe my boob explanation. I guess we should take that as a compliment? My eyes catch over Bree’s shoulder as Price puts himself out of her line of sight and begins miming the action of getting his phone out and taking a picture of the whiteboard. This little show is directed at Derek, who is standing somewhere behind me. Bree sees me watching Price and whips her head around to catch him. He freezes—hands extended looking like he’s holding an imaginary camera. He then transforms that into a forearm stretch. “So tight after our workout today.” Her eyes narrow.

Tell me, could you love me?' he asks, seemingly out of nowhere. 'Of course.' I laugh, not sure of the answer I am supposed to give. But the question is so oddly phrased that I can hardly deny him. I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone. I'd like to love him. 'I wonder,' he says. 'What would you do for me?' 'I don't know what you mean.' This riddling figure with flinty eyes isn't the Locke who stood on the rooftop of his estate and spoke so gently to me or who chased me, laughing, through its halls. I am not quite sure who this Locke is, but he has put me entirely off balance. 'Would you forswear a promise for me?' He is smiling at me as though he's teasing. 'What promise?' He sweeps me around him, my leather slippers pirouetting over the packed earth. In the distance, a piper begins to play. 'Any promise,' he says lightly, although it is no light thing he is asking. 'I guess it depends,' I say, because the real answer, a flat no, isn't what anyone wants to hear. 'Do you love me enough to give me up?' I am sure my expression is stricken. He leans closer. 'Isn't that a test of love?' 'I- I don't know,' I say. All this must be leading up to some declaration on his part, either of affection or of a lack of it. 'Do you love me enough to weep over me?' The words are spoken against my neck. I can feel his breath, making the tiny hairs stand up, making me shudder with an odd combination of desire and discomfort. 'You mean if you were hurt?' 'I mean if I hurt you.' My skin prickles. I don't like this. But at least I know what to say. 'If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry. I would hurt you back.' His step falters as we sweep over the floor. 'I'm sure you'd-' And then he breaks off speaking, looking behind him. I can barely think. My face is hot. I dread what he will say next. 'Time to change partners,' a voice says, and I look to see that it's the worst possible person: Cardan. 'Oh,' he says to Locke. 'Did I steal your line?

Do you ever feel like you are giving far fewer fucks and yet still caring so much it sometimes feels like there is only the most tissue-thin layer separating your soul from this world? Like your heart may be broken but your spirit is still rising? Are you refusing to conform and somehow still fitting just right? Able to look people right in the eye without apology and also like you’re a teenager again, bashful and blushing and off-kilter, like that moment when lips unexpectedly pressed against your head and face buried in your hair fingers trailed down y our arm, the way your stomach can flip-flop like that, even now. Do you ever walk on purpose even when you have nowhere to go? Do you notice things deeply, like dark red lipstick prints on pristine white coffee mugs? Like the way whiskey burns and cool white sheets feel against your skin at the end of the day? Are you claiming your identity, clear and strong and true, and also sinking into the vast unknowable mystery of your all? Do your days feel like longing and acquiescence and learning to stop grasping at things that are ready to leave or that choose not to come closer? Are you making a home of your own skin and inviting the world inside? Are you learning that cultivating solid boundaries and driving into a wide open horizon both feel like freedom, like the harsh desert mountains and the soft ocean wisdom and the road to healing that joins the two? Does it all feels like solidity, like truth, like forgiveness and recklessness and heat and sexy and holy, all rolled up together? Do you crave the burn of heat from another and the for nothing to be louder than sound of your own heartbeat, all at once? Do you finally know that you can choose a love and a life that does not break you? That you can claim a softer beauty and a kinder want. That even your animal hunger can soften its rough edges and say a full-throated yes to what is good and kind and holy. Do you remember that insanity is not a prerequisite for passion and that there is another pathway to your art, one that does not demand your pain as payment for its own becoming? Are you learning to show up? To take up space? To feel the power? Is it full of contradiction, does it feel like fire underwater, are you rising to sing?

Megan stopped suddenly--Finn’s face had gone all weird. He wasn’t smiling anymore. It seemed like he had stopped breathing. “What?” Megan said, her heart skipping a beat. He was studying her. Taking in every line of her face from her jaw to her cheekbone to her flyaway hair. Finn reached over and ran his hand quickly over her hair, brushing it back. “This,” he said. And then he leaned forward and kissed her. For an infinitesimal moment, Megan froze. She had no idea what to do with herself. No idea where to put her hands or whether to move her lips or how to even breathe. Kiss him back, for God’s sake! she told herself. Then she stifled a surprised, embarrassed, happy laugh and did as she was told. She returned his pressure and reached up to grab awkwardly at his sleeve. Finn’s hand cupped the back of her head and his other hand lightly touched her knee. Megan’s skin was on fire. Finn was kissing her. Finn was kissing her! He pulled back, out of nowhere, and looked her in the eyes. “Is this okay?” he asked. Megan mutely, dumbly, breathlessly nodded. She just wanted his lips on hers. He smiled and kissed her again, and this time Megan slid forward on the bench, leaning her body closer to his. What she couldn’t believe was how perfect this felt. How excited and happy and thrilling and safe all at the same time. And then it hit her: Finn was the one.

Even if I hadn’t a gag of magic in my mouth, I wouldn’t have dared spoken. Tristan peered at me as though I were a curious insect. “She isn’t mute, is she? That would be dreadful.” He leaned back against the chair, his strange eyes fixed on me. “On second thought, perhaps it wouldn’t be dreadful at all. I hardly need another woman in my life telling me what to do, and it would mean I could do all the talking and she the listening.” “Perhaps our mistake was in not finding you a deaf one,” Marc said. “And her name is Cécile de Troyes, which you very well know, so quit pretending otherwise.” “Thank you, cousin. It was on the tip of my tongue. Now Mademoiselle de Troyes, tell us your thoughts. Astound us with your wit.” “Mmmmm hmmmm,” I mumbled around the gag. “Could you repeat that?” he said, coming closer. “Afraid I didn’t quite catch the punch line.” A slender finger caught me under the chin, lifting my face. He frowned. “Release her, Aunty.” “She tried to run.” A noise of exasperation passed his lips. “To where? There is nowhere for her to go, nowhere to hide. Binding her is unnecessary.” His flippancy made my heart sink – the very idea of my escape was so improbable to him that it was little more than a jest. I felt power brush over my skin, and I dropped to numb feet. If not for Marc taking hold of my arm, I’d have sprawled across the carpets in front of them all.

When the head of his cock sweeps past her sweet spot yet again, something explosive erupts out of nowhere. "Oh, fuuuuck," she whimpers. Her walls flutter around him as her whole body ignites into flames. The pleasure is all-consuming, knocking her thoughts from her mind. Alexander huffs, stunned. "Did you--- Just from me---" Eden covers her face with her hands, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. You just feel so good, I---" He chuckles, pushing her hands aside to pepper her face with kisses. "Don't be sorry, it's alright. Can I keep going?" "Yes. Yes, please. I want to make you come. Give it to me rough." "If you want it rough, you'd better hold on to me, sweetheart." She does so, circling his neck with her arms. He rolls his hips against her, pace picking up in rhythm. The slap of their skin combined with the sound of their filthy groans is music to her ears. He snaps his hips into her relentlessly, searching for more of that sweet friction. The bed creaks in protest beneath them, but they show no signs of slowing down. "Fucking God, your pussy feels so good." "Fuck, I--- Right there, oh God right there." "So nice and tight for me. Spread your legs wider--- that's it." Eden can feel herself growing tighter, hotter, brighter. She can hardly breathe, and her heart is racing a mile a minute. "I think--- Fuck, I think I'm going to come again. I'm gonna---" Alexander claims her mouth, tongue sweeping over hers as he pins both her wrists above her head against the pillow. He fucks her harder, claiming her, pushing her closer and closer toward climax. When it happens, she moans into his mouth, quaking beneath his weight. He finds release, too, his muscles tensing as he spills over.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—Mo’s high chair was beside Sarah, who had already angled her stool toward her. There was an expression that I wouldn’t have believed she was capable of yesterday on her face as she watched Mo, like she was a fucking unicorn or something. Which she was. Jonah, though, was on the side I’d planned to sit on next to Peter, with a free stool beside him. I slipped into it and looked around expectantly. What the hell was everyone waiting for? Did they… did the Collins family pray before eating? Because it was a Sunday? Was that why Peter and Grandpa weren’t moving? Jonah had never prayed before a meal. Uh…. “Baby Jesus, thank you for our food. Amen,” Grandpa Gus rushed out all of a sudden out of fucking nowhere, startling the fuck out of Peter and me, who both stared at him like we didn’t know who the hell he was anymore. And…. Did he say baby Jesus? The cough beside me had me glancing at Jonah, who had his lips pressed together and his gaze straight ahead at the wall behind his mom and Mo. Glancing back at Grandpa, his cheeks were pink like he didn’t know why the hell he’d said that and was debating whether or not he regretted it. “Ah, amen,” Sarah managed to get out, sounding pretty damn graceful and not like my gramps had just thanked baby Jesus of all people. “That’s the last time I let you watch Talladega Nights,” I muttered under my breath just loud enough for my grandpa to hear. And apparently Jonah too because he coughed, a lot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grandpa replied before nudging the plate of pancakes closer to the middle of the island, avoiding eye contact. “Okay, let’s eat unless someone else wants to… pray or make another useless comment that I have no reference for.” I laughed. But it was Jonah beside me who cleared his throat, reached for the spatula, slid two pancakes onto it before transferring them over to my plate first, as he said, very quietly, very calmly, “I do have a question, were you praying to eight-pound, five-ounce baby Jesus or….” I threw my head back and laughed a second before I slid off the stool and onto the floor. It was a long, long time before I managed to start eating.

It was this whole huge deal,” Megan said. “But then we re-voted and I won! I still can’t believe it.” “Well, congratulations,” Finn said. “Thanks. I couldn’t wait t tell you,” Megan said, grinning at him. “You should have seen her face. It was like…” Megan stopped suddenly--Finn’s face had gone all weird. He wasn’t smiling anymore. It seemed like he had stopped breathing. “What?” Megan said, her heart skipping a beat. He was studying her. Taking in every line of her face from her jaw to her cheekbone to her flyaway hair. Finn reached over and ran his hand quickly over her hair, brushing it back. “This,” he said. And then he leaned forward and kissed her. For an infinitesimal moment, Megan froze. She had no idea what to do with herself. No idea where to put her hands or whether to move her lips or how to even breathe. Kiss him back, for God’s sake! she told herself. Then she stifled a surprised, embarrassed, happy laugh and did as she was told. She returned his pressure and reached up to grab awkwardly at his sleeve. Finn’s hand cupped the back of her head and his other hand lightly touched her knee. Megan’s skin was on fire. Finn was kissing her. Finn was kissing her! He pulled back, out of nowhere, and looked her in the eyes. “Is this okay?” he asked. Megan mutely, dumbly, breathlessly nodded. She just wanted his lips on hers. He smiled and kissed her again, and this time Megan slid forward on the bench, leaning her body closer to his. What she couldn’t believe was how perfect this felt. How excited and happy and thrilling and safe all at the same time. And then it hit her: Finn was the one. The one she’d wanted to share her great news with. The one she could talk to. The one she always thought of when something funny or weird or interesting happened. Finn was smart and hilarious and kind and thoughtful. Why did I waste my time thinking about Evan? Megan wondered as Finn lightly trailed a finger down her cheek. How could I have done that when Finn was right here all along? All she wanted to do was get as close to him as possible. It was suddenly impossible to believe that she had lasted this long in life without feeling this way. The door behind Megan let out its telltale squeak and Finn sprang away from her so fast she almost fell forward. It wasn’t fast enough, however. Regina stood in the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. Megan gulped in a breath and looked at Finn, who hung his head as low as it could go. Yes, Finn McGowan was a lot of great things. But now he was also a dead man.

Jak’ri nodded toward the cliff’s edge. “Shall we?” “Not if you give me time to think about it.” He flashed his teeth in a boyish grin. “One-two-three, jump!” he called and took off running, pulling her after him. Ava’s eyes widened and her heart thudded hard in her chest as she ran alongside him. Their feet hit the edge at the same time, and together they leapt off. Jak’ri whooped as they plummeted toward the ocean, the sound so wonderfully carefree and appealing that Ava found herself grinning big even as she shrieked and squeezed the hell out of his hand. He hit the water a split second before her. Cool liquid closed over their heads. Bubbles surrounded them as if they’d just jumped into a vat of club soda. Then he looped an arm around her waist and propelled them both to the surface. “That was crazy!” she blurted, unable to stop smiling as she swiped water from her face. “Crazy but fun?” he quipped, eyes sparkling with amusement. “Maybe,” she hedged. “But not as fun at this.” Propelling her upper body out of the water, she planted her hands atop his head and dunked him. As soon as she released him, she began a lazy backstroke. Jak’ri surfaced with a sputter and a laugh. When his silver eyes found her a few yards away, they acquired a devilish glint. “Oh, you’re going to regret that, little Earthling.” Ava shrieked when he dove for her. Rolling onto her stomach, she took off, swimming in earnest. Jak’ri’s fingers closed around one of her ankles. “Caught you!” She swam harder, getting absolutely nowhere, breaking into giggles as he issued dire threats in a villainous voice. When was the last time she had honest-to-goodness giggled? She yelped when he gave her ankle a yank. Then she was in his arms and he was grinning wickedly at her. “Think you can get the best of me, do you?” he taunted. Tucking his hands under her arms, he kicked his feet. Ava laughed as he tossed her up out of the water. Through the air she flew, landing on her back several yards away. The water again closed over her head. When she surfaced, she quickly bent her head to hide her smile and rubbed her eyes. “Hang on a sec,” she mumbled. Jak’ri immediately stopped laughing and swam toward her. “I’m sorry. Did you get something in your eye?” “No.” She grinned at him. “I just needed to lure you closer.” Then she swept her arm through the water in front of him, sending a cascade over his head. Sputtering, Jak’ri dove for her. Laughter abounded as they played, even more so when he started sharing tales of his exploits with his brother. Clunk. Ava jerked awake. Damn it! She really hated to wake up. She and Jak’ri had been romping and playing like children. Having to come back to the reality of this cell and the assholes who’d put her in it sucked.

Surely you’re not going to destroy another book, are you?” “I’ve decided my obsession with reading has gotten me absolutely nowhere, so . . . I’m tossing all the nonsense out of my life and intend to travel forth with less baggage.” “You love to read.” “And I’ll occasionally indulge that love, but enough is enough.” She held up her copy of Pride and Prejudice. “This, for all intent and purposes, is a fairy tale. I’m done with fairy tales for good, as well as anything by Shakespeare. I loathe his stories, don’t understand most of what he’s written, and I was only reading them because of any future children I hoped to have. But since I’m destined to remain a spinster forever . . . I’m chucking them into the fire.” “What do Shakespeare and any children you might have in the future have in common?” Millie sent him a look that clearly said she found him a little dense. “I wanted to be knowledgeable so that my children wouldn’t suffer any embarrassment because of my ignorance and lack of education.” Everett’s mouth dropped open before he had the presence of mind to snap it shut when she shot him a glare. Bracing himself in case she got it into her head to punch him as she’d done Mr. Victor, Everett stepped closer to her and pried the copy of Pride and Prejudice out of her hand. “Any child would be lucky to call you mother, Millie. You’re smart, well-read, curious about everything, and have a true love for children.” Staring at him for a long moment, Millie tilted her head. “I knew we should have summoned the physician to take a look at you after your last brawl.” “My wits are not addled, Millie. Quite honestly, my mind is clearer right now than it’s been in years.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, relieved when her eyes widened just a bit. “And I have to tell you something else.” “What?” she asked in a voice that sounded somewhat breathless. “I can’t allow you to burn any Jane Austen book—but especially not Pride and Prejudice.” “That’s what you have to say to me—that I can’t burn a silly book?” “I finished the story, Millie. I read Pride and Prejudice from cover to cover, and . . . I’m your Mr. Darcy and you’re my Lizzy.” “You . . . finished . . . the story?” “Indeed. And if you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m Mr. Darcy.” “I’m fairly certain Mr. Darcy would have had an English accent, but since Lizzy did enjoy reading, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to compare me with her, although. . . .” As Millie continued talking, really rapidly at that, Everett simply watched her, taking in every detail of her face. Her green eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed a delicate shade of pink. Brown curls had begun to escape the pins someone had put in her hair, and a spray of flowers that had been tucked into that hair was hanging somewhat forlornly over her ear. Her lips were still moving incredibly fast, but the second his gaze settled on them, he couldn’t seem to look away. They were delightful lips, just the right shade of pink, and . . . Everett leaned forward and claimed those rapidly moving lips with his own. For

She didn’t want to be empty, didn’t want to vanish. She wanted to be whole. She said, “I want to remember you.” An emotion flared in his face. He braced her hips, tugged her closer. His lids were heavy, eyes dark. His mouth was a wet gleam. She didn’t recognize his expression. It was new. She leaned in and drank the newness of him. Their kiss turned savage. She made it so. She felt his teeth, reveled in the sure knowledge that it had never been like this between them. Yet at the same time, she felt each kiss they’d shared before, felt them live inside this one. His mouth left hers, rasping down her neck. He buried his face in her skin. She sought his mouth and found that he tasted different now. She was tasting the taste of her skin on his mouth. Coppery. She dipped her tongue into it again. “Kestrel.” She didn’t answer him. “This is a bad idea.” “No,” she said. “It isn’t.” He pulled away, closed his eyes, and dropped his head to press his brow against her belly. She felt rich with the words he muttered against her nightdress. His mouth burned through the cloth. His chair scraped back. He no longer touched her. “Not like this.” “Yes. Exactly like this.” She tried to find the words to express how this helped, how he somehow mapped the country of herself, showed the ridges, the rise and valley of her very being. “Kestrel, I think that you’re…using me a little.” She stopped, unpleasantly startled. It occurred to her that what he’d said was another version of what she’d been struggling to say. “It’s not, ah, a hardship.” He gave a rueful smile. “It’s not that I don’t want--” She’d never heard him stammer. Even with her untrustworthy memory, she knew this. You’re easy to know, she wanted to say. Memories of him came quickly. It didn’t hurt, not as much as she’d feared before, on the tundra, or in his empty bed. At least, it didn’t hurt anymore. It was better. Better than…other things. A faceless horror. A monster. Inside her. It thickened, grew into a featureless, blunt shape. She wouldn’t touch it. She’d go nowhere near it. Arin had been right, that day when he’d suggested that there was something too horrible for her to remember. “It’s not enough,” he said. It took her a moment to realize he was continuing his refusal and not responding to her thoughts, which were so loud in her head that she felt as if she’d shouted them. She said, “What would be enough?” Color mounted on his face. “You can tell me,” she said. “Ah,” he said. “Well. Me.” “I don’t understand.” “I want…you to want me.” “I do.” He pushed a hand through his rough hair. “I don’t mean this.” He gestured between them, his hand flipping from her to him. “I…” He struggled, knuckled his eyes, and let the words come. “I want you to be mine, wholly mine, your heart, too. I want you to feel the same way.” Her stomach sank. She’d sworn to herself not to lie to him. He read her answer in her eyes. He dimmed, and said nothing either. But he brushed hair from her face, lifting away strands that had caught in her eyelashes and between her lips. His fingertip painted a slow line over her lower lip. She felt it down her spine, in her belly. Then his hand fell away, and she felt alone.

McHenry glanced at his watch’s tiny face, cursed, gave up and headed towards the men’s room. He felt a firm hand on his arm. The CEO’s wife pulled him closer, trying to whisper something in his ear. He instinctively closed his nose with his thumb and forefinger when he smelled the cadaver-decompositioned combination of cigarette smoke combined with the halitosis caused by bad dental hygiene over many years. No wonder her husband was nowhere to be seen, he thought as he tried to wrestle his arm away from the iron grip of his stalker.

Well, well, if it isn’t the little spitfire herself.” Lily glanced up with a start and found Jimmy Neil standing two steps above her. A slow grin spread across his face, and the black gaps where he was missing parts of his top teeth seemed to stare at her. He’d leered at her several times that past week during the meals he’d taken in the dining room. But she’d made a point of ignoring him. And that’s exactly what she planned to do this time too. He moved one step closer, and the stench of the alcohol on his breath filled the space between them. He’d likely already been out at the taverns long enough to drink too much but would continue with the drinking as long as he was conscious. So why was he back at the hotel? “Ran out of money,” he said too softly, as if he’d seen the direction of her thoughts. “The night’s still young, and I aim to get my fill of women.” His eyes glistened with brittle lust. A man like Jimmy Neil didn’t deserve a response, not even the briefest acknowledgment that she’d heard his lurid words. She turned her head and pushed past him in the narrow stairwell. But before she could get by, his arm shot out and blocked her path. “Where you goin’ so fast?” “Get out of my way.” She shoved his arm, but it didn’t budge. She tried to duck under it, but he stuck out his knee. He leaned into her. The sickly heat and sourness of his breath fanned her neck. “Maybe I don’t need to go back out, not when I can have a little spitfire right here, right now.” She stifled a shudder and the shiver of fear that accompanied it. She might have broken free of him last time, but he was drunk now, and there was no telling what he was capable of doing. Better for her to play it safe. She spun and tried to retreat the way she’d come, but his other hand slapped against the wall, trapping her into an awkward prison within the confines of his arms. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere except up to my room with me.” He pushed himself against her in such a carnal way that she couldn’t keep from crying out in alarm. His hand cut off her cry, covering her mouth and smothering any chance she had at calling for help. A rush of fear turned her blood to ice. For an instant Daisy’s sweet face flitted into her mind. Was this the way men treated her sister? How could she possibly withstand such abuse day after day? As if seeing the fright in Lily’s eyes, his gap-toothed smile widened. “It’s always more fun when there’s some scratchin’ and clawin’.” His hand against her mouth and nose was beginning to suffocate her. She swung her head, struggling to break free and jerked up her knee, trying to connect it with his tender spot. But he was pressed too close, and he only strengthened his grip. She tried to scream and then bite him. But she was quickly losing strength in the dizzying wave that rushed over her. Suddenly his smile froze and fear flitted across his face. “Let go of her. Now. Or I’ll shove this knife in all the way.” Connell’s voice was low and menacing. Slowly Jimmy’s grip loosened. She caught a glimpse of Connell, one step down, his face a mask of calm fury.

his shoulder and ducked into the cave. He called, “Honey, I’m home!” I crept closer to the mouth of the cave. A terrible damp smell came from inside. I took a last breath of fresh air and plunged in after Typhon. In the dim light I spied a second monster. She was big, but nowhere near Typhon’s size.

We are like a man lost in a maze. He runs around frantically, hitting the same dead ends again and again, repeatedly circling back to his starting point. Finally he pauses to rest, to breath, to ponder. Then in a flash he understands the logic of the maze. Now it is time to begin walking. Imagine if instead he says, “No, I cannot pause to rest. Only by moving my feet will I ever get anywhere. So I must not stop moving my feet.” We tend to devalue those periods of pause, emptiness, silence, and integration. How to get out of a maze? Yes, it does help to wander around and explore, but at some point one must stop and reflect. Is there a pattern to my wanderings? What do I remember about how I got lost here in the first place? What is this maze for, anyway? Perhaps the earlier stage of panicked, frantic running around, or of increasingly futile action, is necessary, but many of us are now ready to try another way. The situation on Earth today is too dire for us to act from habit—to reenact again and again the same kinds of solutions that brought us to our present extremity. Where does the wisdom to act in entirely new ways come from? It comes from nowhere, from the void; it comes from inaction. When we see it, we realize it was right in front of us all along. It is never far away; yet at the same time it is in a different universe—a different Story of the World. A Chinese saying describes it well: “As far away as the horizon, and right in front of your face.” You can run toward it forever, run faster and faster, and never get any closer. Only when you stop do you realize you are already there. That is exactly our collective situation right now. All of the solutions to the global crisis are sitting right in front of us, but they are invisible to our collective seeing, existing, as it were, in a different universe.

focus—keep the memory of the kiss we shared before I met Cooper in the forefront of my mind. It was nice. Passionate even. There was a spark, I know there was. I just need to get back to that place. Yet I tense up when he moves in closer. “Is it the cameras?” he whispers in my ear. I have no idea how to answer, so I tell him the truth. Well, mostly the truth. It was difficult for me to forget the cameras even before I met Cooper. “Maybe a little.” A member of the Throb crew comes out from nowhere. “Sorry to interrupt, guys. But can you speak a little louder? We can’t pick up your voices out here too easily.” Flynn sighs loudly. “Yeah. No problem.

WE CAN’T SAVE OURSELVES We need God. We all need to repent of trying to extend his kingdom in our own strength. We need him to change things. The great news is that he delights in helping us when we listen, trust, and obey him. Don’t we want to make a difference and see God turn around the decline in Christianity? Don’t we want to see our family members and friends find Jesus as Savior? Then let’s draw closer to God and talk with him. This is what sincere believers in Christ have done for hundreds of years. And when they have, miracles happened. Nowhere in the Bible did God ever promise that anything would “work,” except him. If you’re a Christian who is bewildered and disheartened by the things you see going on, or if you’re a pastor or church leader who is discouraged by a lukewarm church and lack of fruit, be sure of this promise: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8).

But in other places, they’re symbols of wisdom. And in the Harry Potter world of wizarding, they are faithful servants and masterful spies.

Turning my head away from his bourbon-heavy scent, I twisted his cummerbund around and undid the cheap buckle. His breath grew shorter as he cupped and massaged the generous D cups, his touch rudimentary but acceptable. “Tonight?” he gasped hopefully. I considered the request. It had been weeks since we’d last had sex, the quick event occurring after Matt had, from out of nowhere, put an offer on the Atherton house. Granted, it was a horrible home. Ugly and with a choppy floor plan that was badly out of style, but still. For my cheap husband, it was a huge and unexpected step in the right direction for our social standing and my happiness. “Yes.” I moved closer, as if in enjoyment of his touch. Matt had been a sexual disappointment early on, one that required me to take care of my own needs. Most recently, I had done so with the explosive but short-lived Ned Plymouth dalliance. I’d had high hopes for that pairing, and I frowned as I placed the cummerbund on the counter, thinking of the lost potential with my former boss. Matt grunted, his mouth now sucking at my nipples with loud and frantic wet smacks of his lips. I undid his pants and pulled down on the zipper. “Let’s go to the bed.” I injected some husk into my voice, as if I were eager, and not just to get it over with. On my back, with him above me, I thought of William Winthorpe. There was something dark and delicious about him, a temptation that had existed as soon as he’d introduced himself at my interview. William. There had been a tug in his tone, a tightening of the cord between us. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Gruff and sexual.

It was the sunset when he put his had on my shoulders. Blue-red skies, so blue as the farewell might be, so red as the life will be. - How long? - For them? Maybe forever, maybe one day longer... - My Jinn is sad today and I'm not sure, why? - Want to see them back? - It was just my faith in impossibility. - Want to give them a few seconds more? - The stone is the stone, Eve. The not-alive is... - We can try, Jinnie, why not? You tried. - Tears warmed my face. What the day is today? - Do you believe in magic, Eve? When were you crying last time? Honestly, I don't remember. What can it change, my tears? Terracotta cheeks, porcelain temples, stony trap, the eternity. - Are you still afraid of the sarcophagus? - Just my thought, his crazy and psychedelic fear, conjecture. Do the Genies have a kind of trauma?? - We do have the hearts. Is it making you better? - I hear his question, I can't find his mind, the one I feel, skies in fire and howling wind. -It is the Time, Eve, that wind, it is the breeze, uncommonly, experienced. Nothing cannot be back, we have to pay for this, from us, our particles, all who we are... The man on crossing, perception of junction, step forward step back, I saw him before. Before of what? Where is he going now? - That moment when can go to nowhere, Eve. How many times were you dying? Honestly, I don't remember, what can it change, my death? Terracotta palms, porcelain thumbs, stony breath after all. - Jinnie, what day is today? You are talking about the Death, yes? - The warm touch, route, depth. - Why here is so cold? - Do you know what was before them, Eve? Do you want to see? - No!!! - My feeling was No, my blood said Back, my senses Stroke pushing me back. Do not be imprisoned, Do not let Them to imprison you. - You and Us... - His whisper, his step, gates slam shut. WTF... Terracotta-Stony gates. Nothing more, nothing less, nothingness. I am smashed. With them... With??? Oh no, whatever, not they!!! Buried alive. Do not move, do not turn back, this is a delusion, you do not hear them, you are only the... Author??? - RED! - Shreds of his voice. - Blue and Red. - What is she doing here??? - Rustle - Is she our Salvation??? They stepped, closer, they are the coldest I ever met. - Hey, I am not him!!! - I was shouting. - Do not step on me!!! There was something crushing under my feet. Sounds like... Ice? Not possible. Or yes, it is the frozen stone, millions of them, buttered Time. - Go! - This is my Jinn - Get out from ice!!! Go where? I am stuck, for eternity. With them and their horses. What the Jinn said? 'Ride them'. It was about the Dragons. Sorry, this is what I said! Was it? Upper, North, South. Go upper. Before they will arise... - The woman is a woman is a woman... - Sometimes the thoughts are touching, the desires surrounding.

They are silent for a moment, watching the waves come closer and closer to their feet. There is always the temptation, thinks Ruth, to stay just a little bit too long, to stand on the water’s edge until the spray actually gets you. And it’s not always the wave you expect, the spectacular breakers hurling themselves against the shore. Sometimes it’s the sneaky waves, the ones that come from nowhere, sucking the sand away from your feet; sometimes it’s these waves that take you by surprise.

Walk close to the man," Patricia tells Carla, loud enough for the man to hear. Then Patricia turns her head and looks at me. "Closer," she says, pulling me toward her. My face is a tongue-lick away from her backpack. Chino rests his free hand on my shoulder. Tries to flick my ear. "Stop," I say, looking back, and he smiles, his teeth bright like the moon should be, but it's nowhere. Behind him, the first stars poke through the dark-blue, almost black sky.

She Lies Within Me! Her thoughts rapture like seed pods bursting at the command of some unknown will, And the seeds of her memories every corner of my life fill, With hopes, memories, desires that all germinate as a single feeling, Minds creation, her beautiful memories, are for heart a complicated dealing, And as feelings arise from the seeds of her memories, The landscape of my life is cast into never ending sanctuaries, Of her beautiful and ceaseless memories, Where my mind wanders aimlessly and my heart remains marooned within its boundaries, The walls are virtual but the mental fascination is ubiquitous and anchored in reality , Where I submit myself before her beauty in my absolute piety, And as I serenade for her in the sanctuary of her memories, A million seeds of her memories and desires sprout around me in an unending array of miniature carries, Where I witness her blooming like flowers of hope, And like a hungry butterfly I alight on them , and persuade them to elope, With me and beyond this sanctuary with no real walls, Into the reality where anything virtual crumbles and falls, So, let me dance with you under the real Sun, And create new memories for our beautiful life and not just for fun, Then let the sanctuary be renewed by our love and romance, And then let us forever in reality dance, Under the real sun, under the real moonlight and the real stars in the night sky, Then when the time is right let us again fly, To the sanctuary of hopes, dreams and desires, And once again sprout from the bursting seed pods with renewed fires, Of love and feelings endless, And as an admirer of your beauty let me then feel limitless, Growing over your memories, your desires and every feeling that draws me closer to you, And in the vast silence of this sanctuary, let my heart beats echo with a singular vocal accord, “My darling Irma I love you!” Then let real walls rise around the sanctuary where we now exist as a palpable reality, And wherever I maybe, I am with you and surrounded by your endless beauty, And as pods of seeds bearing our memories burst and scatter everywhere, Then let me love you there, somewhere, but now like the old walls of the sanctuary we shall be nowhere!

We both laugh, but when she gets closer and his eyes drift over her long, tanned legs, the laugh clogs in my throat. “For real, Matty, I’m gonna fuck you up you keep looking at her like that.” Our eyes connect again and I can’t even hold on to my ire, not with him. Second to Amir, he’s been my ace boom since diaper days. I’d trust him with my life. Growing up in these streets, I’ve had to more than once. Bristol reaches us at the table and stands beside me. I capture her hand and bring it to my lips. “You wanna sit?” I ask her. She looks at the full card table, smiling at the other three guys playing Spades with me. “There’s nowhere to sit.” “As long as I got a lap,” I say, patting my leg, “you got a place to sit.

The scent had left a red mark on my neck like a boy had been sucking there. He put his finger on the mark. "Does it hurt?" It didn't, but I felt the liquid inside of me as if I'd drunk it down instead of putting it on my skin. Warmth spread through my limbs like the poison might from a scorpion's tail, branching and branching until it was trapped against the edges of my body, pooling in my fingertips and my toes, with nowhere to go. As the moments passed a definite scent came up through my pores. It began slowly. First from the inside of my arms, and then from my palms. It rose from my legs and then my thighs and then my breasts. Yes. It was coming from everywhere. Fire and jasmine, leather and rose. I was a repository for Louise's life's work, alive, and inside of me. "Can you smell it?" I asked Gabriel. He put his face so close to my body I could feel the moisture from his breath. "I can." Gabriel and I faced each other on the bed. We sat there for hours, I had no idea either of us possessed that kind of patience. Slow as time the scent ripened and deepened, growing more remote and strange with each passing minute. Hot and dark and sweet, my fragrance was as mesmerizing as looking up and seeing a fire on the moon. It was not like any type of perfume that I knew but like nature itself, organically beautiful, as if the scent had been made from the inside of my body and hadn't come from the vial at all. As if it had been sitting inside me for years, a wine that had finally found its perfect moment. Gabriel breathed in this new part of me. He seemed unfocused and unable to stand up or let go of my hands. "What's it like for you?" I asked him. He leaned closer, closed his eyes and inhaled. "Like sweetness," he said, "with a little bit of poison that makes the sweetness, sweeter.

Having too many activities on your list diffuses your efforts and slows your progress. The result is frustration and unhappiness. You feel like you are getting nowhere. And when you don’t move ahead, you grow closer to quitting.

Our feelings and our eyes I asked her, “Irma, what have you done?” She looked at me and replied, “nothing!” I cannot find few of my heart beats a lot seems undone, But there was a feeling that reminded me of something, And I tracked the rhythm of my every heart beat, Which led just to one trace, That whenever I see her and our eyes meet, My heart loses its pace, And there goes my heart beat missing in between this space, The distance between her eyes and mine, Though we stand on the same ground at the same place, Yet my heart beats rush towards her making a bee line, Just to beat closer to her heart, To feel her warmth and swim in the sea of her feelings, And as these love seeking heart beats depart, My heart cries in its painful reelings, Where it finds itself left in the wilderness of nowhere, She is there, her heart is there too, But our eyes still tend to wander somewhere, Where she is willing to say I love you, But her heart beats are yet to feel the miracle of a missing heart beat, That always rushes unto me, Creating love’s fondest retreat, Where wherever I may see, I see her and she only sees me, This is the distance that grows in the eyes, That only these missing heart beats can shorten, Just like when I look at those skies, I am always by her beauty smitten, Her eyes, her smiles, her face and her sweet ways, Are actually the twinkle that the night stars bear, And ah their pain on those Sunny and bright days, When they long to see her, But today, she looked at me and I felt she plugged into my spirit, And a heart beat unknown sank into me with it, Then she started beating in my every heart beat, And how I loved my heart beat, and repeat and repeat, With every heartbeat, “I love you too.” And then the distance in our eyes vanished suddenly, As I held her in my arms and said, “I was born to love you!” And then our two hearts, beat as one and forever happily.

I unbuttoned the top of my shirt as the heat of my magic made my skin prickle and I got a little carried away with the idea of making Roxy Vega bow for me in my own mind. I wanted my hand fisted in her black hair, her mouth on mine and her naked flesh pressed up against me as she gasped my name like a prayer to a god and I ruined her like a demon born to sin. But I needed to stop those thoughts in their track. Not least because I wasn't ever going to be able to indulge in them. By the time I was through with her, she'd hate me far too much for her to ever consider parting her thighs for me. More’s the pity. Marguerite appeared out of nowhere, jerking me from my fantasies about Roxanya Vega and dropping into my lap where she gasped as she found the hardness of my cock driving into her ass. She leaned in to kiss me and I dragged her closer, kissing her hard and grinding her down over my cock to try and gain some relief from the ache in it. I closed my eyes as I kissed her hard, sinking my tongue into her mouth and thinking of a girl with dark hair and fire in her soul. But as she mewled like a kitten and melted for me, my fantasy was somewhat ruined. I may not have known Roxy well, but she didn't seem like the kind of girl to melt into a puddle when I kissed her. No, she'd be all fire and spite and the kind of lust that burned the roof from houses while her fingernails gouged lines in my flesh. I tried to push that thought out, gripping Marguerite's ass and rocking her back and forth over my cock, but I was fighting a losing battle because she was mewling again and her limbs were going as floppy as my dick was becoming as she instantly let me take control. I released my grip on her waist, sighing as I pulled back and let her start sucking on my neck while I just looked up at the ceiling and waited for it to get more interesting again. Or maybe for it to just stop. But before I could make a decision on that, Milton's voice drew my attention to the other side of our group and I instantly perked up at his words. “Oh hey, it's Tory, right?” he asked and I nudged Marguerite aside to look over at the girl in question where she stood before him as she raised her hand and a tsunami of water slammed into him. The attack sent him flying back off of his chair and slamming to the floor, but my gaze was fixed on her furious features and the curl of those full lips as she glared at him. My pulse picked up as she blasted him with more water which rolled him across the wooden floor before pinning him to the wall. The group surrounding me all leapt up in shock and I almost dropped Marguerite on her ass as I stood too. (Darius POV)

I, inside you! ( Part 1 ) It was quite and still, Though she lay beside me, The room did with a sense of coziness fill, As I looked at her and she looked at me, Even the winking of the eyes had ceased, For it disturbed the rhyme of our feelings, Love in our life had doubtlessly increased, Inspite of times passing moments and their wanton stealings, So, she did not wink and neither did I, We lay there still, covered in the morning light, I was glad that finally I could say, it was I who she loved, just I, Not winking, hearts throbbing, in that embrace tight, The warm sunbeams pierced through the curtain, And lit the corners and walls of the room, It was love, it was eternity, it was everything, it was romantic, of it I was now certain, And then like a bright Summer rose her body and her feelings over mine did bloom, I did not want to wink anymore, Because I did not want to miss her beauty even for a split second, She loved me, I loved her, she kissed me, I kissed her just like always and before, She was silent, she was passionate, she was a beautiful woman in love with nothing to pretend, And with every new beam of light invading the room, She held me tighter and drew me closer, It felt like Summer beauty was the bride and I was its sole groom, And how loved I felt being with her, Almost like the Autumn mist that spreads itself around everything, She grew over me, Till in this state of eternal everything I felt like nothing, And it did not matter as long as she was kissing me, Time was waiting at the door, The destiny was knocking on the sunshine kissed walls, Cupid was busy shooting arrows of absolute amour, But now we were nowhere, because like the sunshine we hung everywhere in the room made of love walls,

But would it do anything—the training, the work, the stairs—beyond keeping her busy? The thoughts still waited like wolves to swarm her. To rip her apart. I loved you from the first moment I held you in my arms. The wolves prowled closer, claws clicking. “Where’d you go?” Cassian asked, hazel eyes dim with worry. Nesta took up her stance again. It sent the wolves retreating a step. “Nowhere.

Stars from the last night It was a vast and endless desert, Of sand, of dust, of the unforgiving sun, Life crawled on its belly and ever effort hurt, Yet life ventured to fulfil what yesterday was left undone, The sand storm blew from every end, Life was caught in its middle, It had nowhere to go, though it had a universe to defend, I watched life pitted against all forces that prevented it from solving the riddle, The dust, the storm, connived with the hot Sun, And they all held life in its cage of atrocities, While life only thought of the universe whose affairs it had to run, So, it heaved its chest and breathed in all the adversities, And blew it at these forces evil, In seconds the dust settled, the storm turned calm and the Sun shone humbly, Because if life wishes to be; it can be the meanest devil, But that is not what it fancies for it has universe to manage and it wants to do so proudly, Life that deals with million adversities, sees storms of dust as nature’s vanities, Because life that thrives everywhere cannot be contained in cages of temporary storms, Life shall always reward the victor who fulfils his/her duties, And is never scared of anything no matter how loud the alarms, That is why it lives in the desert of dust and sand too, Where everything is against its existence, But life shall do what it has to do, while the desert of savagery will do what it has to do, And there shall be neither any hand nor any role of providence, For life that believes in love and equality of all sorts, Will surmount every peak of resistance no matter how high, And shoot itself at the the desert, at the storm, like brave darts, That only love one thing, one purpose, that to fly, So, I saw life wrestling with storm, with dust, with the desert, and even the Sun, They all held her down like an animal of sacrifice to be offered to the God’s of vanity, Yet life resisted and cast all these forces away, one by one, And I witnessed desert’s travesty of life’s magnanimity, Whenever you are in the desert and you see the storm coming closer to you, Remember the actual fact, the life is always on your side, As long as you do not believe it is the desert that favours you, Because it takes some wisdom to realise that in the day sky the bright stars of yesternight still reside! Just like in my eyes her dreams, her thoughts are as fresh as ever, That no storm, no time can fade away, Because I love her like life, that is in love forever, And it shall be so, even in the tempest of all sorts, anyhow and anyway! So you brave soldiers of life and love, If you love someone, love her true love her the same in the desert and in the beautiful summer, And do not wait for the providence from above, Life of love is not always calm because in the desert of life, you shall witness a storm that ceases never!

Stars from the last night It was a vast and endless desert, Of sand, of dust, of the unforgiving sun, Life crawled on its belly and every effort hurt, Yet life ventured to fulfil what yesterday was left undone, The sand storm blew from every end, Life was caught in its middle, It had nowhere to go, though it had a universe to defend, I watched life pitted against all forces that prevented it from solving the riddle, The dust, the storm, connived with the hot sun, And they all held life in its cage of atrocities, While life only thought of the universe whose affairs it had to run, So, it heaved its chest and breathed in all the adversities, And blew it at these forces evil, In seconds the dust settled, the storm turned calm and the Sun shone humbly, Because if life wishes to be; it can be the meanest devil, But that is not what it fancies for it has the universe to manage and it wants to do so proudly, Life that deals with million adversities, sees storms of dust as nature’s vanities, Because life that thrives everywhere cannot be contained in cages of temporary storms, Life shall always reward the victor who fulfils his/her duties, And is never scared of anything no matter how loud the alarms, That is why it lives in the desert of dust and sand too, Where everything is against its existence, But life shall do what it has to do, while the desert of savagery will do what it has to do, And there shall be neither any hand nor any role of providence, For life that believes in love and equality of all sorts, Will surmount every peak of resistance no matter how high, And shoot itself at the the desert, at the storm, like brave darts, That only love one thing, one purpose, that to fly, So, I saw life wrestling with storm, with dust, with the desert, and even the Sun, They all held her down like an animal of sacrifice to be offered to the God’s of vanity, Yet life resisted and cast all these forces away, one by one, And I witnessed desert’s travesty of life’s magnanimity, Whenever you are in the desert and you see the storm coming closer to you, Remember the actual fact, the life is always on your side, As long as you do not believe it is the desert that favours you, Because it takes some wisdom to realise that in the sky of the day the bright stars of yesternight still reside! Just like in my eyes her dreams, her thoughts are as fresh as ever, That no storm, no time can fade away, Because I love her like life, that is in love forever, And it shall be so, even in the tempest of all sorts, anyhow and anyway! So you brave soldiers of life and love, If you love someone, love her true love her the same in the desert and in the beautiful summer, And do not wait for the providence from above, Life of love is not always calm because in the desert of life, you shall witness a storm that ceases never!

Harper looked up, and aquamarine eyes held her gaze in the mirror. He stepped closer, pressing his body to her back; his measured calm was nowhere to be found. Those eyes were full of fire, staring directly into her soul.

I’m not an amateur, so I grab the mixing bowl full of brownie batter and make a break for it. Except…I’m not moving. My socked feet are gliding on the hardwood but going absolutely nowhere. Who put a treadmill in this floor?! I look over my shoulder and see Nathan has the back of my shirt pinched between his fingers. And now I’m being slid backward, closer to him. That large hand reaches over my shoulder, and I watch it dip—his whole entire hand—into the bowl of brownie mix I’m clutching tightly in front of me. There’s nothing for me to do but close my eyes as he slowly presses a blob of sticky batter onto the right side of my face. Hair and all. That’s going to be fun to get out. Can I just say, this is the weirdest, slowest food fight anyone has ever witnessed? And oddly, it’s making me super hot and tingly. I spin around to face him, and it’s my turn now. I take a dip of batter then smear it across both of his eyebrows. He looks like Eugene Levy now, and I have to press my fist to my mouth to keep from laughing. With a subtle grin, he loads up his finger then uses the batter to paint brown lipstick across my lips—really…freaking…slowly. Oh.

ONE CAN TRAVEL THE WORLD and go nowhere. One can be stuck keeping the faith at home and discover a new world. In this story most of the action takes place within a hundred-foot radius around our house. But that circle contains histories. This was a year in which we stayed closer but saw farther. We came to see the many ways in which our daily existence is strange and romantic, unpredictable and quirky, buoyed and burdened with exotic customs as any place is. Home is always too close and yet too distant for us to fully know it. It can take a kind of magic spell to let us see the miracles in our everyday routines. Our enabling wizard was the little owl.

They moved closer to the portal. Rising flights of steps, upside-down towers, doors opening to nowhere and anywhere: it was truly the representation of madness. If geometry can be evil, this was it.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

You should have gone with them,” she said, lifting her chin to look at Taristan. The smoke grew so thick she could hardly see him through the shadows, the strange realm burning around them. But she could still feel his arms, wrapped around her as they were, holding them both together until some kind of ending came. “To what?” he answered, his voice raspy with smoke. Erida heaved another choking breath, the heat of the flames buffeting her back. Tears slipped from her eyes and Erida curled into him, as if she might disappear into Taristan entirely. “To anything but this,” she cried out, looking back to where the Spindle used to be. “There is nothing for you here.” Taristan only stared. “Yes, there is.” The fires spread, so close now Erida feared her armor might melt off her body. But there was nowhere to go, nothing to do. They had no blade. They had no doorways. There was only Taristan in front of her, the long years of his life welling up in his eyes. She knew them as much as anyone could. An orphan, a mercenary, a prince. A discarded child ripe for the picking, set on this terrible path for so terribly long. Did it always lead here? she wondered. Has this always been our fate? The steps shuddered behind her, one of them crumbling entirely. What Waits hissed with the cracking stone, closer by the second. The demon within called to the demon without, the two of them connected like a piece of rope pulling taut. Erida swallowed against the sensation, feeling her control slip. She gripped Taristan tighter, blinking fiercely. My mind is my own. My mind is my own. But her own voice began to fade, even in her head. She saw the same in Taristan, the same war raging behind his eyes. Before it could seize them both, Erida seized her prince by the neck, pulling his face to her own. He tasted like blood and smoke, but she reveled in it. “Does this make you mine?” Taristan whispered, his hand against her jaw. It was the same question he once asked so long ago, when Erida could give no answer. It felt foolish now, a stupid thing to hesitate over. Especially as another took over her head, conquering her mind as she tried to conquer the world. “Yes,” she answered, kissing him again. Kissing him until the flames pressed in, until she couldn’t breathe. Until her vision went black. Until the first footstep landed on the grass, the dirt going to ashes, beneath Him, and all the realms shook with the weight of it.

The guy with the wacky hair and the crazed look in his eyes did not appear out of nowhere. He was already known to them. Sometimes he said how great they were, and told them to go back to their roots; if need be, he threw in some highly unlikely but madly alluring conspiracy theory. Just to get them to listen. And to give them a fright. Because he'd noticed that if he scared them, they paid him more attention. They'd gotten used to him being there, and to the fact that now and then, with a totally straight face, he said something unintentionally hilarious. Sometimes he hovered on the fringes of political life, sometimes closer to the mainstream, but he was generally regarded as a mild eccentric. Until one fine day they rubbed their eyes in amazement. Because the guy with the wacky hair had entered the race for one of the highest offices in the land. And just as before, here he was, trying to scare them again - with talk of refugees, war, and unprecedent disaster. With anything at all. He was also trying to pump up the national ego. In the process - in the eyes of the so-called elite - he was making a bit of a fool of himself. But he was also making big promises. Above all, he promised to turn back time, and make things the way they used to be. In other words, better. And he won. You know where this happened? Yes, you're right. In our part of the world. In post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. In Regime-Change Land. "And he won." "....In post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. In Regime-Change Land.

The guy with the wacky hair and the crazed look in his eyes did not appear out of nowhere. He was already known to them. Sometimes he said how great they were, and told them to go back to their roots; if need be, he threw in some highly unlikely but madly alluring conspiracy theory. Just to get them to listen. And to give them a fright. Because he'd noticed that if he scared them, they paid him more attention. They'd gotten used to him being there, and to the fact that now and then, with a totally straight face, he said something unintentionally hilarious. Sometimes he hovered on the fringes of political life, sometimes closer to the mainstream, but he was generally regarded as a mild eccentric. Until one fine day they rubbed their eyes in amazement. Because the guy with the wacky hair had entered the race for one of the highest offices in the land. And just as before, here he was, trying to scare them again - with talk of refugees, war, and unprecedent disaster. With anything at all. He was also trying to pump up the national ego. In the process - in the eyes of the so-called elite - he was making a bit of a fool of himself. But he was also making big promises. Above all, he promised to turn back time, and make things the way they used to be. In other words, better. And he won. You know where this happened? Yes, you're right. In our part of the world. In post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. In Regime-Change Land.

Don’t come any closer,” she warned, but her eyes begged me to. “You’ve done nothing to keep me away.” I looked back at the arrow that had been nowhere near me. “I already crave you, even though I know you’re keeping things from me. You think an ill-shot arrow will be the thing to stop me?

Anxiety was like being on a treadmill while being chased by a lion. I was constantly spinning my wheels but getting nowhere but closer to the carnivore’s maw.

Charlie Hebdo is a rare example of a leftist newspaper that understood radical Islam to be akin to the radical religious Right. Actually, that’s too mild, it’s really closer to the radical medieval religious Right. I know members of the radical Christian Right in the United States, and they are scary. But nowhere near as scary as Islamic terrorists. They’re the Westboro Baptist Church with machetes.

As Steve glided along the edge of the overhanging leaves, every now and then a golden orb spiderweb would clutch at my hair, the thick, yellow, sticky webbing covering my head, the boat, and the torch. Steve was oblivious to anything but the crocodiles. Some of them allowed us to get close. Steve could gauge a croc’s total size based on the length of its head. My heart kept pounding, and I tried to do everything right. He showed me how to hold the spotlight right under my chin, so that I could look directly over the beam and pick up the eye-shine of the crocs. I was tired, yet adrenaline surged through my veins. “Look, look, look,” Steve whispered excitedly, “there’s another one.” There was something strange about this one, only a single red eye reflected. Perhaps the other one had been shot out, Steve suggested. “He’s big,” he whispered. “Maybe fifteen feet.” We edged closer. The engine coughed and suddenly ground to a stop. Steve leaned over the back of the dinghy, reaching in up to his shoulder in the water, to clear the weeds from around the propeller. The single red eye blinked out. The big croc had submerged. Submerged where? I thought. Steve finally cleared the weeds and yanked the ignition cord, but the engine refused to turn over. I am in the middle of nowhere. It’s nighttime. I am surrounded by crocodiles. The boat motor won’t start. Steve will be snatched and eaten by One-Eye right off the back of the boat. Then I’ll be alone. But after some gentle persuasion (some of it verbal, and not so gentle), the engine finally started. The heat hadn’t really broken when we got back to camp. It was still well over ninety degrees. The insects that had been attracted to my spotlight were stuck and struggling in the sweat running down my back. “How about a quick tub?” Steve said. That was Australian for bath. Somehow, the words “bath” and “crocodile” refused to go together in my mind.

Look, look, look,” Steve whispered excitedly, “there’s another one.” There was something strange about this one, only a single red eye reflected. Perhaps the other one had been shot out, Steve suggested. “He’s big,” he whispered. “Maybe fifteen feet.” We edged closer. The engine coughed and suddenly ground to a stop. Steve leaned over the back of the dinghy, reaching in up to his shoulder in the water, to clear the weeds from around the propeller. The single red eye blinked out. The big croc had submerged. Submerged where? I thought. Steve finally cleared the weeds and yanked the ignition cord, but the engine refused to turn over. I am in the middle of nowhere. It’s nighttime. I am surrounded by crocodiles. The boat motor won’t start. Steve will be snatched and eaten by One-Eye right off the back of the boat. Then I’ll be alone. But after some gentle persuasion (some of it verbal, and not so gentle), the engine finally started. The heat hadn’t really broken when we got back to camp. It was still well over ninety degrees. The insects that had been attracted to my spotlight were stuck and struggling in the sweat running down my back.

He’s big,” he whispered. “Maybe fifteen feet.” We edged closer. The engine coughed and suddenly ground to a stop. Steve leaned over the back of the dinghy, reaching in up to his shoulder in the water, to clear the weeds from around the propeller. The single red eye blinked out. The big croc had submerged. Submerged where? I thought. Steve finally cleared the weeds and yanked the ignition cord, but the engine refused to turn over. I am in the middle of nowhere. It’s nighttime. I am surrounded by crocodiles. The boat motor won’t start. Steve will be snatched and eaten by One-Eye right off the back of the boat. Then I’ll be alone.

They landed in a field with a light dusting of snow. “Middle of nowhere?” Elysia said, looking around. “Interesting choice.” “No waaaay!” Thrilled, Ferbus broke from the group and started running toward a series of objects on the horizon. Driggs snickered. “This should be fun.” As they got closer to Ferbus’s shouts of glee, the forms that had made no sense at a distance began to take shape into something that made even less sense: stacks of old automobiles, seemingly dropped from space but arranged in an undeniable pattern. “Carhenge!” Ferbus jubilantly danced through the pillars, taking it all in. “Man, you hear about it, you dream about the day you might get to see it, but it’s even better than I imagined!” Elysia blinked. “What is Carhenge?” “Don’t you get it?” said Ferbus, the grin still on his face. “It’s like Stonehenge.” He pointed. “But with cars.” The Juniors stared at him. Bang coughed. “Well,” said Uncle Mort after a moment, “as riveting as”—he consulted his atlas—“rural Nebraska is, it’s probably best that we keep moving.” Ferbus’s face fell. “But the gift shop.” Uncle Mort rubbed his temples. “Tell you what, next time we’re being chased by a murderous criminal, I’ll try to schedule in a little more time for sightseeing.” He formed the Juniors back into a circle. “Let’s not assign a designated driver this time. We’ll scythe, and whoever thinks of something first, somewhere farther east—that’s where we’ll go. Ready?” *** This time around they were greeted by the stoic faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, all wearing caps of snow. “Ooh, Mount Rushmore,” Ferbus said bitterly. “Because dead presidents are so much more fascinating than the subtle, delicate art of automotive sculpture.” “East!” Uncle Mort said, exasperated. “Not north!

One of his few questions, again seemingly out of nowhere, was to ask me how I compared Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. I explained that Holder was much closer to President Obama, which had its advantages and its perils.

He lifted the picture for a closer look and saw himself among a group of men, tossing a baseball from bare right hand to gloved left hand. The flight of the ball had always made this photo mysterious to Francis, for the camera had caught the ball clutched in one hand and also in flight, arcing in a blur toward the glove. What the camera had caught was two instants in one: time separated and unified, the ball in two places at once, an eventuation as inexplicable as the Trinity itself. Francis now took the picture to be a Trinitarian talisman (a hand, a glove, a ball) for achieving the impossible: for he had always believed it impossible for him, ravaged man, failed human, to reenter history under this roof. Yet here he was in this acne of reconstitutable time, touching untouchable artifacts of a self that did not yet know it was ruined, just as the ball, in its inanimate ignorance, did not know yet that it was going nowhere, was caught. But the ball is really not yet caught, except by the camera, which has frozen only its situation in space. And Francis is not yet ruined, except as an apparency in process. The ball still flies. Francis still lives to play another day. Doesn't he?

hands, other have Solo cups. Most stand with their hands in their pockets. As we move closer to the crowd, my stomach begins to come unhinged. I thought I wanted a peaceful, somber affair, but I begin to crave a long night that will lead to a total blackout. It’s sudden, but I want to bury my grief in a bottle of whiskey. Everybody knows that’s the simplest, most efficient way to let it all out. It also brings the bonus perk of not being able to remember. It’s Joey’s party, but he’s nowhere

Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google,” he said in a 2000 interview, long before his company’s name had become a household word. “We’re nowhere near doing that now. However, we can get incrementally closer to that, and that is basically what we work on.

Finn’s hand cupped the back of her head and his other hand lightly touched her knee. Megan’s skin was on fire. Finn was kissing her. Finn was kissing her! He pulled back, out of nowhere, and looked her in the eyes. “Is this okay?” he asked. Megan mutely, dumbly, breathlessly nodded. She just wanted his lips on hers. He smiled and kissed her again, and this time Megan slid forward on the bench, leaning her body closer to his. What she couldn’t believe was how perfect this felt. How excited and happy and thrilling and safe all at the same time. And then it hit her: Finn was the one. The one she’d wanted to share her great news with. The one she could talk to. The one she always thought of when something funny or weird or interesting happened. Finn was smart and hilarious and kind and thoughtful. Why did I waste my time thinking about Evan? Megan wondered as Finn lightly trailed a finger down her cheek. How could I have done that when Finn was right here all along? All she wanted to do was get as close to him as possible. It was suddenly impossible to believe that she had lasted this long in life without feeling this way.

With a start, she noticed the warrior had stretched out a hand to her. A wide leather band encircled his wrist to protect him from his bowstring. Staring at his dark palm and strong fingers, she shook her head in denial. “Hi, tai,” he said in a low voice. Guiding his stallion closer, he bent to touch her chin. Her eyelid quivered when he brushed at a tear on her cheek. “Ka taikay, ka taikay, Tohobt Nabituh,” he whispered. The words made no sense. Puzzled, she met his gaze. “Tosa ehr-mahr.” Raising his hand, he showed her the glistening wetness on his fingertips. “Silver rain, tosa ehr-mahr.” He compared her tears to silver rain? She searched his eyes for some trace of humanity and found none. After a moment he straightened, raising his lance in what looked like a salute. “Suvate!” he yelled, his glittering eyes sweeping the line of encircling riders. A low rumble of answering voices replied, “Suvate!” He seemed satisfied with the response and, with a mighty thrust, drove the lance into the earth. Again, he thrust out his hand. “Take it, Yellow Hair, in friendship.” She was afraid he might drag her onto his mount if she touched him, but his eyes compelled her. Besides, if he was set on it, he’d have his way, with or without her cooperation. She lifted a quivering arm, expecting the worst, and placed her fingers across his palm. His callused hand tightened on hers, the warmth of his grip shooting to her shoulder. “We will meet again. I will come to you like the wind, from nowhere. Remember the face of this Comanche. I am your destiny.” With that, he released her and rode his horse in a circle about the yard, one arm raised high, his head thrown back to emit a shrill cry that sent shivers up her spine. Moments later a cloud of dust rose in the yard, and four hundred hooves beat a deafening staccato of retreat.

My enemies closed in. The fight was seconds away from starting, and probably as many seconds away from finishing. I had nowhere to go. They came closer. I made a colossal decision: I would not put up a fight. I would not take it like a man. I would not take it like a battler. Look, I know people like reading about those outclassed in strength who make up for it in spirit, like my uncle Terry. Respected are those who go down fighting, right? But those noble creatures still get a heavy clobbering, and I didn’t want a clobbering of any kind. . Also, I remembered something Dad had taught me in one of our table kitchen classes. He said, ‘Listen, Jasper. Pride is the first thing you need to do away with in life. It’s there to make you feel good about yourself. It’s like putting a suit on a shrivelled carrot and taking it out to the theatre and pretending it’s someone important. The first step in self- liberation is to be free of self- respect. I understand why it’s useful for some. When people have nothing, they can still have their pride. That’s why the poor were given the myth of nobility, because the cupboards were bare. Are you listening to me? This is important, Jasper. I don’t want you to have anything to do with nobility, pride, or self- respect. They’re tools to help you bronze your own head.’ I sat on the ground with my legs crossed. I didn’t even straighten my back. I slouched. They had to bend down to punch me in the jaw. the whole 21 One of them got on his knees to do it. They took turns. They tried to get me to my feet; I let my body go limp. One of them had to hold me up, but I had become slippery and slid greasily through their fingers back onto the ground. I was still taking a beating, and my head was stunned by strong fists pounding at it, but the pummelling was sloppy, confused. Eventually my plan worked: they gave up. They asked what was wrong with me. They asked me why I wouldn’t fight back. Maybe the truth was I was too busy fighting back tears to be fighting back people, but I didn’t say anything. They spat at me and then left me to contemplate the colour of my own blood. Against the white of my shirt, it was a luminous red.

They stood on an incline in the middle of the cemetery and he stepped closer. He lifted her chin to look into her green eyes. “You lost all track of time because we were enjoying ourselves. That means the date was a success.” He leaned toward her and gave her a peck on the lips. “Now relax and I’ll take you home.” And out of nowhere, completely unplanned and unprepared, Maureen threw her arms around George’s neck and planted her lips on his. He stumbled backward a couple of steps before he came up against a large tombstone that balanced him. He was finally able to get his arms around her and hang on to her. He kissed her back, but as kisses go it wasn’t much. It was the gesture that was startling. She let him go. “Well,” he said. “You should warn me when you’re going to do that. We could have gone down the hill, then we’d have to explain a couple of broken hips. That’s more complicated than being a little late to day care.” “I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Just make sure it comes over you again before long. I like it.” He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you down. Slowly.” *

We hadn’t kissed more than a few times, and I had never kissed anyone but him, so each time was still a discovery. This time I found the edge of teeth, skimming, and the tip of a tongue; I found the slide of a knee between mine, and the weight of a hand at the back of my neck, urging me closer, further, faster. I didn’t breathe, didn’t want to take the time, and so I ended up gasping against the side of his neck before long, making him laugh. “I’ll take that as a good sign,” he said. “Don’t get cocky, Kereseth.” I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. Lazmet--and whatever questions I had about my parentage--didn’t feel as close to me now. I was safe here, floating on a ship in the middle of nowhere, with Akos Kereseth.

As we got closer to Staten Island and the tip of Manhattan, the sun hung behind the dense wll of skyscrapers that defines the Manhattan skyline. Within minutes, the sun was a gigantic orangish-pink orb suspended over Gotham. I couldn't take my eyes off the scene, but there was nowhere to stop the bike for a photo. It was one of those moments seared into my consciousness for all eternity. The realization that I was riding out of the darkness and into the light of a new day ran through my head as I kept my eyes on that glorious sunrise.

Ultramarathons have a way of stripping you bare. All the outside layers are peeled away like an onion and you are left alone with your doubts and fears and a finish line that feels like an eternity away. But step after step, minute after minute, hour after hour that finish line gets closer. And when you find it all the doubts and fears vanish, replaced by triumph.