Coop Day Quotes

So spring break consisted of seven fun-filled days cooped up in the house with Jeffrey, who was grounded because he’d won the Regional Wrestling Championships

Once there was a bunny. This bunny had a birthday party. It was the bestest birthday party ever. Because that was the day the bunny got a bazooka. THe bunny loved his bazooka. He blew up all sorts of things on the farm. He blew up the stable of Henrietta the Horse. He blew up the pen of Pugsly the Pig. He blew up the coop of Chuck the Chicken. "I have the bestest bazooka ever," the bunny said. Then the farm friends proceeded to beat him senseless and steal his bazooka. It was the happiest day of his life. The end. Epilogue: Pugsly the Pig, now without a pen, was quite annoyed. When none of the others were looking, he stole the bazooka. He tied a bandana on his head and swore vengeance for what had been done to him. "From this day on," he whispered, raising the bazooka, "I shall be known as Hambo.

High society here turns me off and I feel a bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery without anything to eat and with no place to sleep, that is what has most impressed me here, it is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger... Although I am very interested in all the industrial and mechanical development of the United States, I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and good taste. They live as if in an enormous chicken coop that is dirty and uncomfortable. The houses look like bread ovens and all the comfort that they talk about is a myth.

If you ask me, it's all that schooling. It takes the fun out of life, being cooped up like that day after day...Books, now that's different. There's nothing like a book to keep you company of a long voyage.

Have you thought about studying psychology, Kyle?” he asked. “I plan to get my PhD in that. To get my PhD in art history just seems so . . . useless. I study art and its history every second of every day. I mean, when you think about it . . . I’m art history in the making. But a PhD in psychology would allow me to understand my enemies so I can destroy them and their careers before they get in my way.” Cherise leaned over and whispered in Coop’s ear, “If he starts wondering about the taste of human flesh, you do understand we will have to stop him before his murder spree begins?” “I’m more worried,” Cooper whispered back, “that he’ll become ruling overlord of the universe and we’ll have to find some kind of magic sword if we hope to destroy him.” They both shuddered and returned to their work.

It is of no importance to know who I am since some day I shall no longer be”—that is what each of us should answer those who bother about our identity and desire at any price to coop us up in a category or a definition.

Every day, on the roads of Delhi, some chauffeur is driving an empty car with a black suitcase sitting on the backseat. Inside that suitcase is a million, two million rupees; more money than that chauffeur will see in his lifetime. If he took the money he could go to America, Australia, anywhere, and start a new life. He could go inside the five-star hotels he has dreamed about all his life and only seen from the outside. He could take his family to Goa, to England. Yet he takes that black suitcase where his master wants. He puts it down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why? "Because Indians are the world's most honest people, like the prime minister's booklet will inform you? No. It's because 99.9 percent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market.

When you have a bad day ma fille, think about it from beginning to end. Walk your way through it. Was it really a bad day, or was it a few bad moments? What part of your day would you like to hold onto before you close your eyes? Find that good bit, and let it be the thing you go to sleep to.

Oh, by the way," Coop announces as he weaves his DeathBot ship through a barrage of space debris on his laptop screen. "In case you didn't know. It's national 'That's What She Said' Day." I give him a thumbs-up. "I like it." We're camping out in Sean's backyard tonight. It's another one of our traditions. One night, every summer, we buy a ton of junk food and energy drinks and set up Sean's six-person tent in the far corner of his yard. We've got an extension cord running from the garage so that we can rough it in style, with computers and a TV and DVD player. There's a citronella candle burning in the middle of the tent to ward off mosquitoes and to mask the thick stink of mildew. Everyone's brought sleeping bags and pillows, but we aren't planning on logging too many Zs. Sean enters the tent carrying his Xbox. "I don't think there are enough sockets for all of these." I waggle my eyebrows at Coop. "That's what she said." Coop busts up. Sean stands there, looking confused. "I don't get it." "That's what she says," Coop says, sending him and me into hysterics. Sean sighs and puts the Xbox down. "I can see this is going to be a long night." "That's what she said," me and Coop howl in chorus. "Are you guys done yet?" Coop is practically in tears. "That's what she said." "Okay. I'll just keep my mouth shut," Sean grumbles. "That's what she said." I can barely talk I'm laughing so hard. "Enough. No more. My cheeks hurt," Coop says, rubbing his face. I point at him. "That's what she said." And with that, the three of us fall over in fits. "Oh, man, now look what you made me do." Coop motions to his computer. "That was my last DeathBot ship." "That's what she said," Sean blurts out, laughing at his nonsensical joke. Coop and I stare at him, and then silmultaniously, we hit Sean in the face with our pillows.

Once they let you get away with running around for ten years like a king hoodlum, you tend to forget now and then that about half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they honestly doubt their own sanity. These are not the kind of people who really need to get hung up in depressing political trips. They are not ready for it. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare. This girl I was delivering up to the chicken coop was one of those people. She was terrified of almost everything, including me, and this made me very uncomfortable.

Writers—particularly storytellers like myself—write about people. That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them. Think about it. Why does someone become a writer? Is it because they like people? Of course not. Why else would we seek out a job where we get to spend all day, every day, cooped up in our basement with no company besides paper, a pencil, and our imaginary friends? Writers hate people. If you’ve ever met a writer, you know that they’re generally awkward, slovenly individuals who live beneath stairwells, hiss at those who pass, and forget to bathe for weeklong periods. And those are the socially competent ones.

Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says. I answer without preamble, “That I’m happy.” A tear springs loose and slides away. “That I’m happy here with you, in our half torn apart house. That I think—I think I’d be content to serve coffee every day and watch the waves and never do anything extraordinary and still feel like I have the best life.

September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax attack on the U.S. Congress restarted a focus on COG and COOP planning that continues to this day. Today, this secret world still exists, just beneath the surface of our country. In many ways, it’s actually more expansive, powerful, and capable today than it ever was during the twentieth century. Today,

She brought a chicken from the coop to the chopping block. She kissed the hen’s beak in gratitude, knowing the hen would nourish many youngsters through her sacrifice. After the blessing, Oota Dabun took an ax to the hen’s neck. The death was instant. Painless. Such is the mercy that comes from the slayer who knows one day he or she shall also be slain.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. I've found that a lack of time is usually the mother of necessity.

The wife of a junior officer cooped up in a horrible canvas partition in steerage for five months wrote: "I had enjoyed much peace there in the absence of every comfort, even of such as are now enjoyed in jail. I used to say that there were four privations in my situation - fire, water, earth and air. No fire to warm oneself on the coldest day, no water to drink but what was tainted, no earth to set the foot on, and scarcely any air to breathe. Yet, with all these miserable circumstances, we spent many a happy hour by candlelight in that wretched cabin whilst I sewed and he read the Bible to me.

Osborn’s theory had great impact, and company leaders took up brainstorming with enthusiasm. To this day, it’s common for anyone who spends time in corporate America to find himself occasionally cooped up with colleagues in a room full of whiteboards, markers, and a preternaturally peppy facilitator encouraging everyone to free-associate. There’s only one problem with Osborn’s breakthrough idea: group brainstorming doesn’t actually work.

I THINK THE REAL TRICK to finding that sense of satisfaction is to realize you don’t need much to attain it. A window-box salad garden and a banjo hanging on the back of the door can be all the freedom you need. If it isn’t everything you want for the future, let it be enough for tonight. Don’t look at your current situation as a hindrance to living the way you want, because living the way you want has nothing to do with how much land you have or how much you can afford to spend on a new house. It has to do with the way you choose to live every day and how content you are with what you have. If a few things on your plate every season come from the work of your own hands, you are creating food for your body, and that is enough. If the hat on your head was knitted with your own hands, you’re providing warmth from string and that’s enough. If you rode your bike to work, trained your dog to pack, or just baked a loaf of bread, let it be enough. Accepting where you are today, and working toward what’s ahead, is the best you can do. You can take the projects in this book as far as your chosen road will take you. Maybe your gardens and coops will outgrow mine, and before you know it you’ll be trading in your Audi for a pickup. But the starting point is to take control of what you can and smile with how things are. Find your own happiness and dance with it.

A permanent dull ache spread from my belly to my chest. I thought I could feel pinpricks of loneliness in the pads of my fingers, taste it in the back of my mouth. Clara Miller must have been lonely too, longing to be touched. One day as she sat before her metal tub filled to the rim with sweet corn, she reached behind her head and unpinned her silver hair. It tumbled down her back like creamy lace cloak. She hiked her skirts to her knees and I could see she had removed her stockings. Her legs were heavy and milk white, solid as columns. She hiked her skirts higher, until they bunched in her lap. When I kissed the back of her neck she quivered, like the dying peasant I’d shot and killed a week before. Her silver hair smelled like smoke. Clara and I tangled together like the bale of wire resting beside the unrepaired chicken coop. We were shameless, falling to the ground, wading into the creek, making our way to her bed.

A chicken tractor, also known as a chicken ark, is a mobile coop that can be moved around to different places in your yard. It allows you to reap the benefits of letting your chickens roam free, while keeping them safe from most predators. They're a good option for areas where there are too many predators to completely free range chickens, but you don't want to keep your birds cooped up in a single area. You can place the tractor in an area for a couple days until the chickens have picked

Cause everybody wants to be right in a world where there ain’t no right or wrong to be found. My side. He don’t listen to my side. Just like that chicken coop, everything’s got four sides: his side, her side, an outside, and an inside. All of it is the truth

I’m frequently reminded of the scale of time, and that despite my being a time traveler, the earth will spend far more days without my company than with it. That is as it should be. Cosmic insignificance does wonders to keep an ego in check.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2218.

She had to admit that she sometimes saw in them a reflection of herself, cooped up with nothing but the same faces to look at day after day. But today, she’d gone on a carriage ride and opened the door to Daphne. Perhaps her own cage door might be rattling open. Just a little bit?

Anticipating their calamity and fright when deportation day came (August 6, 1942) he [Henryk Goldszmit, pen name: Janusz Korczak] joined them aboard the train bound for Treblinka, because, he said, he knew his presence would calm them—“You do not leave a sick child in the night, and you do not leave children at a time like this.” A photograph taken at the Umschlagplatz (Transshipment Square) shows him marching, hatless, in military boots, hand in hand with several children, while 192 other children and ten staff members follow, four abreast, escorted by German soldiers. Korczak and the children boarded red boxcars not much larger than chicken coops, usually stuffed with seventy-five vertical adults, though all the children easily fit. In Joshua Perle’s eyewitness account in The Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, he describes the scene: “A miracle occurred, two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak.” In 1971, the Russians named a newly discovered asteroid after him, 2163 Korczak, but maybe they should have named it Ro, the planet he dreamed of. The Poles claim Korczak as a martyr, and the Israelis revere him as one of the Thirty-Six Just Men, whose pure souls make possible the world’s salvation. According to Jewish legend, these few, through their good hearts and good deeds, keep the too-wicked world from being destroyed. For their sake alone, all of humanity is spared. The legend tells that they are ordinary people, not flawless or magical, and that most of them remain unrecognized throughout their lives, while they choose to perpetuate goodness, even in the midst of inferno.

Wind and water raged with storms, wave and shingle were shackled in ice...until another year appeared in the yard as it does to this day, the seasons constant, the wonder of light coming over us. Then winter was gone, earth’s lap grew lovely...longing woke in the cooped-up exile for a voyage home.

Now, brooder is an interesting word. People who worry a lot in silence are known as brooders. But then again so is a hen sitting on her eggs. The more I get to know chickens, the more I realize half our language comes from chickens. Well, not half. But an awful lot considering this isn't Latin or anything. Cooped up. Egghead. Hatch a plan. Henpecked. Pecker. Cock. Chickenshit. Chicken-scratch. A lot of chicken words are meant to deliver attitude, which isn't surprising to me now that I have chickens. Chickens aren't background animals like fish or sheep or horses. Chickens are in-your-face animals. Chickens if you have them, come to bracket your days. The rooster hollers all morning, and then in the evening the hens have left you their mysterious gift of eggs. Silkies are said to be excellent brooders, to have a tendency toward "broodiness." This, too, is usually meant as a compliment.

And so it is with authors: he deals with them every day, he knows their fixations, indecisions, susceptibilities, egocentricities, and yet the true authors remain those who for him were only a name on a jacket, a word that was part of the title, authors who had the same reality as their characters, as the places mentioned in the books, who existed and didn’t exist at the same time, like those characters and those countries. The author was an invisible point from which the books came, a void traveled by ghosts, an underground tunnel that put other worlds in communication with the chicken coop of his boyhood. . .

I wanted not to say things in a letter. But if you don’t feel certain, I’ll tell you. I really don’t know what love means. I don’t feel like they do on the film. But I love you, whether or not. I don’t think much about you, because what is the good. But — ’ here were words scratched out. ‘Nay, what can I say? Don’t let us say things. You are home to me. I don’t care about houses. When I think of you — but I don’t think if I can help it, if a man starts thinking, the fat is in the fire. Everything is a prison, I know that. You are the only bit of freedom I’ve ever had. I never felt free. I’ve always felt cooped in and small, except with you, and with you I’m all right, you open all the world to me. When I think about how you opened to me, nay, I don’t care what happens. But I don’t think if I can help it. We’ve got to live our lives, you yours and me mine. Best never think, something’s bound to happen. And the day will come again, and happen the night, when we’ve got the world to ourselves.

Getting outside in winter is essential. The belief that we can't enjoy ourselves outdoors is largely responsible for the idea that winter is limiting; this perspective makes the world feel out of reach. But this view is erroneous and self-fulfilling. If we remain cooped up, we will feel winter's limitations, and our mood will drop, no matter how hygge we make it inside.

the bright light. Jasper smiled, too, but kept his distance. He leaned, long and blond, against the post at the foot of the stairs. During the days we’d had to spend cooped up together in Phoenix, I’d thought he’d gotten over his aversion to me. But he’d gone back to exactly how he’d acted before—avoiding me as much as possible—the moment he was free from that temporary obligation to protect me. I knew it wasn’t personal, just a precaution,

Kalugin fell asleep and had a dream: He’s sitting in some bushes and a policeman is walking by. Kalugin woke up, scratched around his mouth, and fell asleep again, and again he had a dream: He’s walking by the bushes, and in the bushes sits a policeman, hiding. Kalugin woke up, placed a newspaper under his head to keep his drool from drowning the pillow, and fell asleep again. And again he had a dream: He’s sitting in the bushes and a policeman is walking by. Kalugin woke up, changed the newspaper, lay down and fell asleep. And when he fell asleep he had the dream again: He’s walking by the bushes and in the bushes sits a policeman. Kalugin woke up and decided not to go to sleep again, but he fell asleep right away and had a dream: He’s sitting behind the policeman and a bush is walking by. Kalugin screamed and thrashed in his bed, but now he couldn’t wake up. Kalugin slept four days and four nights in a row, and on the fifth day he woke up so skinny that he had to tie his boots to his legs with twine so they wouldn’t slip off. They didn’t recognize him at the bakery where he always bought millet bread and they slipped him half-rye. The sanitary commission, making its rounds from apartment to apartment, set eyes on Kalugin and, deeming him unsanitary, ordered the co-op management to throw him out with the trash. Kalugin was folded in half and they threw him out, like trash.

Why is it some days everything works out, and some days nothing works out. What I mean is, I've been trying to get on that bus for Bountiful for over five years. Usually Jessie Mae and Ludie find me before I ever get inside the railroad station good. Today, I got inside both the railroad station and the bus station. Bought a ticket, seen Ludie and Jessie Mae before they saw me. Hid out. Met a pretty friend like you. Lost my purse, and now I'm having it found for me. I guess the good Lord isn't with us every day? It would be so nice if he was. Well, maybe then we wouldn't appreciate so much the days when he's on our side. Or maybe he's always on our side and we don't know it. Maybe I had to wait twenty years cooped up in a city before I could appreciate getting back here. (...) I'm a very happy woman.

Egg-laying hens, for example, have a complex world of behavioural needs and drives. They feel strong urges to scout their environment, forage and peck around, determine social hierarchies, build nests and groom themselves. But the egg industry often locks the hens inside tiny coops, and it is not uncommon for it to squeeze four hens to a cage, each given a floor space of about 10 by 8.5 inches. The hens receive sufficient food, but they are unable to claim a territory, build a nest or engage in other natural activities. Indeed, the cage is so small that hens are often unable even to flap their wings or stand fully erect. Pigs are among the most intelligent and inquisitive of mammals, second perhaps only to the great apes. Yet industrialised pig farms routinely confine nursing sows inside such small crates that they are literally unable to turn around (not to mention walk or forage). The sows are kept in these crates day and night for four weeks after giving birth. Their offspring are then taken away to be fattened up and the sows are impregnated with the next litter of piglets. Many dairy cows live almost all their allotted years inside a small enclosure; standing, sitting and sleeping in their own urine and excrement. They receive their measure of food, hormones and medications from one set of machines, and get milked every few hours by another set of machines. The cow in the middle is treated as little more than a mouth that takes in raw materials and an udder that produces a commodity. Treating living creatures possessing complex emotional worlds as if they were machines is likely to cause them not only physical discomfort, but also much social stress and psychological frustration.

The biggest fear for homeschooled children is that they will be unable to relate to their peers, will not have friends, or that they will otherwise be unable to interact with people in a normal way. Consider this: How many of your daily interactions with people are solely with people of your own birth year?  We’re not considering interactions with people who are a year or two older or a year or two younger, but specifically people who were born within a few months of your birthday. In society, it would be very odd to section people at work by their birth year and allow you to interact only with persons your same age. This artificial constraint would limit your understanding of people and society across a broader range of ages. In traditional schools, children are placed in grades artificially constrained by the child’s birth date and an arbitrary cut-off day on a school calendar. Every student is taught the same thing as everyone else of the same age primarily because it is a convenient way to manage a large number of students. Students are not grouped that way because there is any inherent special socialization that occurs when grouping children in such a manner. Sectioning off children into narrow bands of same-age peers does not make them better able to interact with society at large. In fact, sectioning off children in this way does just the opposite—it restricts their ability to practice interacting with a wide variety of people. So why do we worry about homeschooled children’s socialization?  The erroneous assumption is that the child will be homeschooled and will be at home, schooling in the house, all day every day, with no interactions with other people. Unless a family is remotely located in a desolate place away from any form of civilization, social isolation is highly unlikely. Every homeschooling family I know involves their children in daily life—going to the grocery store or the bank, running errands, volunteering in the community, or participating in sports, arts, or community classes. Within the homeschooled community, sports, arts, drama, co-op classes, etc., are usually sectioned by elementary, pre-teen, and teen groupings. This allows students to interact with a wider range of children, and the interactions usually enhance a child’s ability to interact well with a wider age-range of students. Additionally, being out in the community provides many opportunities for children to interact with people of all ages. When homeschooling groups plan field trips, there are sometimes constraints on the age range, depending upon the destination, but many times the trip is open to children of all ages. As an example, when our group went on a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank, all ages of children attended. The tour and information were of interest to all of the children in one way or another. After the tour, our group dined at a nearby food court. The parents sat together to chat and the children all sat with each other, with kids of all ages talking and having fun with each other. When interacting with society, exposure to a wider variety of people makes for better overall socialization. Many homeschooling groups also have park days, game days, or play days that allow all of the children in the homeschooled community to come together and play. Usually such social opportunities last for two, three, or four hours. Our group used to have Friday afternoon “Park Day.”  After our morning studies, we would pack a picnic lunch, drive to the park, and spend the rest of the afternoon letting the kids run and play. Older kids would organize games and play with younger kids, which let them practice great leadership skills. The younger kids truly looked up to and enjoyed being included in games with the older kids.

Until that moment Elizabeth wouldn’t have believed she could feel more humiliated than she already did. Robbed of even the defense of righteous indignation, she faced the fact that she was the unwanted gest of someone who’d made a fool of her not once but twice. “How did you get here? I didn’t hear any horses, and a carriage sure as well can’t make the climb.” “A wheeled conveyance brought us most of the way,” she prevaricated, seizing on Lucinda’s earlier explanation, “and it’s gone on now.” She saw his eyes narrow with angry disgust as he realized he was stuck with them unless he wanted to spend several days escorting them back to the inn. Terrified that the tears burning the backs of her eyes were going to fall, Elizabeth tipped her head back and turned it, pretending to be inspecting the ceiling, the staircase, the walls, anything. Through the haze of tears she noticed for the first time that the place looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a year. Beside her Lucinda glanced around through narrowed eyes and arrived at the same conclusion. Jake, anticipating that the old woman was about to make some disparaging comment about Ian’s house, leapt into the breach with forced joviality. “Well, now,” he burst out, rubbing his hands together and striding forward to the fire. “Now that’s all settled, shall we all be properly introduced? Then we’ll see about supper.” He looked expectantly at Ian, waiting for him to handle the introductions, but instead of doing the thing properly he merely nodded curtly to the beautiful blond girl and said, “Elizabeth Cameron-Jake Wiley.” “How do you do, Mr. Wiley,” Elizabeth said. “Call me Jake,” he said cheerfully, then he turned expectantly to the scowling duenna. “And you are?” Fearing that Lucinda was about to rip up at Ian for his cavalier handling of the introductions, Elizabeth hastily said, “This is my companion, Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones.” “Good heavens! Two names. Well, no need to stand on formality, since we’re going to be cooped up together for at least a few days! Just call me Jake. What shall I call you?” “You may call me Miss Throckmorton-Jones,” she informed him, looking down the length of her beaklike nose. “Er-very well,” he replied, casting an anxious look of appeal to Ian, who seemed to be momentarily enjoying Jake’s futile efforts to create an atmosphere of conviviality. Disconcerted, Jake ran his hands through his disheveled hair and arranged a forced smile on her face. Nervously, he gestured about the untidy room. “Well, now, if we’d known we were going to have such…ah…gra…that is, illustrious company, we’d have-“ “Swept off the chairs?” Lucinda suggested acidly. “Shoveled off the floor?

I'm unaccustomed to being cooped up all day-I really must insist that you permit me to enjoy a short walk." "Not on your life," Fletcher growled. From the sound, Breckenridge realized the group had moved closer to the tap. "You don't need to think you're going to give us the slip so easily," Fletcher said again. "My dear good man"-Heather with her nose in the air; Breckenridge could tell by her tone-"just where in this landscape of empty fields do you imagine I'm going to slip to?" Cobbins opined that she might try to steal a horse and ride off. "Oh,yes-in a round gown and evening slippers," Heather jeered. "But I wasn't suggesting you let me ramble on my own-Martha can come with me." That was Martha's cue to enter the fray, but Heather stuck to her guns, refusing to back down through the ensuing, increasingly heated verbal stoush. Until Fletcher intervened, aggravated frustration resonating in his voice. "Look you-we're under strict orders to keep you safe, not to let you wander off to fall prey to the first shiftless rake who rides past and takes a fancy to you." Silence reigned for half a minute, then Heather audibly sniffed. "I'll have you know that shiftless rakes know better than to take a fancy to me." Not true, Breckenridge thought, but that wasn't the startling information contained in Fletcher's outburst. "Come on, Heather-follow up." As if she'd heard his muttered exhortation, she blithely swept on. "But if rather than standing there arguing, you instead treated me like a sensible adult and told me what your so strict orders with respect to me were, I might see my way to complying-or at least to helping you comply with them." Breckenridge blinked as he sorted through that pronouncement; he could almost feel for Fletcher when he hissed out a sigh. "All right," Fletcher's frustration had reached breaking point. "If you must know, we're to keep you safe from all harm. We're not to let a bloody pigeon pluck so much as a hair from your head. We're to deliver you up in prime condition, exactly as you were when he grabbed you." From the change in Fletcher's tone, Breckenridge could visualize him moving closer to tower over Heather to intimidate her into backing down; he could have told him it wouldn't work. "So now you see," Fletcher went on, voice low and forceful, "that it's entirely out of the question for you to go out for any ramble." "Hmm." Heather's tone was tellingly mild. Fletcher was about to get floored by an uppercut. For once not being on the receiving end, Breckenridge grinned and waited for it to land. "If, as you say, your orders are to-do correct me if I'm wrong-keep me in my customary excellent health until you hand me over to your employer, then, my dear Fletcher, that will absolutely necessitate me going for a walk. Being cooped up all day in a carriage has never agreed with me-if you don't wish me to weaken or develop some unhealthy affliction, I will require fresh air and gentle exercise to recoup." She paused, then went on, her tone one of utmost reasonableness, "A short excursion along the river at the rear of the inn, and back, should restore my constitution." Breckenridge was certain he could hear Fletcher breathing in and out through clenched teeth. A fraught moment passed on, then, "Oh, very well! Martha-go with her. Twenty minutes, do you hear? Not a minute more." "Thank you, Fletcher. Come, Martha-we don't want to waste the light." Breckenridge heard Heather, with the rather slower Martha, leave the inn by the main door. He sipped his ale, waited. Eventually, Fletcher and Cobbins climbed the stairs, Cobbins grumbling, Fletcher ominously silent. The instant they passed out of hearing, Breckenridge stood, stretched, then walked out of the tap and into the foyer. Seconds later, he slipped out of the front door.

I thought we were meeting by the field house,” I call out as I make my way over. He doesn’t even turn around. “Nah, I’m pretty sure I said the parking lot.” “You definitely said the field house,” I argue. Why can’t he ever just admit that he’s wrong? “Geez, field house, parking lot. What difference does it make?” Mason asks. “Give it a rest, why don’t you.” I shoot him a glare. “Oh, hey, Mason. Remember when your hair was long and everyone thought you were a girl?” Ryder chuckles as he releases a perfect spiral in Mason’s direction. “She’s got you there.” “Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?” Mason catches the ball and cradles it against his chest, then launches it toward Ben. I just stand there watching as they continue to toss it back and forth between the three of them. Haven’t they had enough football for one day? I pull out my cell to check the time. “We should probably get going.” “I guess,” Ryder says with an exaggerated sigh, like I’m putting him out or something. Which is particularly annoying since he’s the one who insisted on going with me. Ben jogs up beside me, the football tucked beneath his arm. “Where are you two off to? Whoa, you’re sweaty.” I fold my arms across my damp chest. “Hey, southern girls don’t sweat. We glow.” Ben snorts at that. “Says who?” “Says Ryder’s mom,” I say with a grin. It’s one of Laura Grace’s favorite sayings--one that always makes Ryder wince. “The hardware store,” Ryder answers, snatching the ball back from Ben. “Gotta pick up some things for the storm--sandbags and stuff like that. Y’all want to come?” “Nah, I think I’ll pass.” Mason wrinkles his nose. “Pretty sure I don’t want to be cooped up in the truck with Jemma glowing like she is right now.” “Everybody thought you and Morgan were identical twin girls,” I say with a smirk. “Remember, Mason? Isn’t that just so cute?” “I’ll go,” Ben chimes in. “If you’re getting sandbags, you’ll need some help carrying them out to the truck.” “Thanks, Ben. See, someone’s a gentleman.” “Don’t look now, Ryder, but your one-woman fan club is over there.” Mason tips his head toward the school building in the distance. “I think she’s scented you out. Quick. You better run.” I glance over my shoulder to find Rosie standing on the sidewalk by the building’s double doors, looking around hopefully. “Hey!” Mason calls out, waving both arms above his head. “He’s over here.” Ryder’s cheeks turn beet-red. He just stares at the ground, his jaw working furiously. “C’mon, man,” Ben says, throwing an elbow into Mason’s side. “Don’t be a dick.” He grabs the football and heads toward Ryder’s Durango. “We better get going. The hardware store probably closes at six.” Silently, Ryder and I hurry after him and hop inside the truck--Ben up front, me in the backseat. We don’t look back to see if Rosie’s following.

joke around—nothing serious—as I work to get my leg back to where it was. Two weeks later, I’m in an ankle-to-hip leg brace and hobbling around on crutches. The brace can’t come off for another six weeks, so my parents lend me their townhouse in New York City and Lucien hires me an assistant to help me out around the house. Some guy named Trevor. He’s okay, but I don’t give him much to do. I want to regain my independence as fast as I can and get back out there for Planet X. Yuri, my editor, is griping that he needs me back and I’m more than happy to oblige. But I still need to recuperate, and I’m bored as hell cooped up in the townhouse. Some buddies of mine from PX stop by and we head out to a brunch place on Amsterdam Street my assistant sometimes orders from. Deacon, Logan, Polly, Jonesy and I take a table in Annabelle’s Bistro, and settle in for a good two hours, running our waitress ragged. She’s a cute little brunette doing her best to stay cheerful for us while we give her a hard time with endless coffee refills, loud laughter, swearing, and general obnoxiousness. Her nametag says Charlotte, and Deacon calls her “Sweet Charlotte” and ogles and teases her, sometimes inappropriately. She has pretty eyes, I muse, but otherwise pay her no mind. I have my leg up on a chair in the corner, leaning back, as if I haven’t a care in the world. And I don’t. I’m going to make a full recovery and pick up my life right where I left off. Finally, a manager with a severe hairdo and too much makeup, politely, yet pointedly, inquires if there’s anything else we need, and we take the hint. We gather our shit and Deacon picks up the tab. We file out, through the maze of tables, and I’m last, hobbling slowly on crutches. I’m halfway out when I realize I left my Yankees baseball cap on the table. I return to get it and find the waitress staring at the check with tears in her eyes. She snaps the black leather book shut when she sees me and hurriedly turns away. “Forget something?” she asks with false cheer and a shaky smile. “My hat,” I say. She’s short and I’m tall. I tower over her. “Did Deacon leave a shitty tip? He does that.” “Oh no, no, I mean…it’s fine,” she says, turning away to wipe her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just…um, kind of a rough month. You know how it is.” She glances me up and down in my expensive jeans and designer shirt. “Or maybe you don’t.” The waitress realizes what she said, and another round of apologies bursts out of her as she begins stacking our dirty dishes. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Really. I have this bad habit…blurting. I don’t know why I said that. Anyway, um…” I laugh, and fish into my back pocket for my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. And take this. For your trouble.” I offer her forty dollars and her eyes widen. Up close, her eyes are even prettier—large and luminous, but sad too. A blush turns her skin scarlet “Oh, no, I couldn’t. No, please. It’s fine, really.” She bustles even faster now, not looking at me. I shrug and drop the twenties on the table. “I hope your month improves.” She stops and stares at the money, at war with herself. “Okay. Thank you,” she says finally, her voice cracking. She takes the money and stuffs it into her apron. I feel sorta bad, poor girl. “Have a nice day, Charlotte,” I say, and start to hobble away. She calls after me, “I hope your leg gets better soon.” That was big of her, considering what ginormous bastards we’d been to her all morning. Or maybe she’s just doing her job. I wave a hand to her without looking back, and leave Annabelle’s. Time heals me. I go back to work. To Planet X. To the world and all its thrills and beauty. I don’t go back to my parents’ townhouse; hell I’m hardly in NYC anymore. I don’t go back to Annabelle’s and I never see—or think about—that cute waitress with the sad eyes ever again. “Fucking hell,” I whisper as the machine reads the last line of

The weathered dairy barn, the wilted chicken coop, the leaning corn crib, the corroded silos-- all were revealed as structures of utility and grace. Someone must have rigged Ry's perception so that he had spent his whole life seeing only the ultimate futility of these structures while concealing what made them worthy, the struggle itself, the striving for a better day.

It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person. And yet the autobiographer now envies and pities the younger Patty standing there in the Fen City Co-op innocently believing that she'd reached the bottom: that, one way or another, the crisis would be resolved in the next five days. A chubby teenage girl at the cash register had taken an interest in her paralysis. Patty gave her a lunatic smile and went and got a plastic-wrapped chicken and five ugly potatoes and some humble, limp leeks. The only thing worse than inhabiting her anxiety undrunk, she decided, would be to be drunk and still inhabiting it.

A truly intelligent species knows that meddling is not often fixed by more meddling.

You can’t assume the most important people in your life will be living close to home. Sometimes your greatest friends are discovered in far away places. It’s up to you to go find them.”-Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2202

On vis, we got shit all,” Rixon replies. “These guys were blacked out darker than Batman’s asshole. But we got their heat signature on the satellite.

I may not be in Heaven, but I’m in St. Petersburg, and that’s close enough.

Is this film an accurate depiction of your current culture?” He points to the scene of Chunk getting terrified by a frozen body in the Fratellis’ freezer. “Yes. That’s exactly accurate.

The field mice spent their days scampering through the tall grasses and collecting fairyberries and beanstalk seeds. The stable mice helped themselves to oats and barley from the horse stalls, and built nests of straw from the Pegasus pen. The barn mice sat on the rafters, playing their fiddles and enjoying the grains they'd snatched from the golden goose's coop. The pantry mice were the happiest of all because they spent their days sleeping and their nights gorging on a plentiful supply of delicacies. They were the plumpest of mice, roll-poly critters who slumbered in the pantry during the day, then awoke after the kitchen had closed. A lazy waddle beneath the Castleteria tables would yield a cornucopia of delights- thronecake crumbs, hot cross bun bits, and pieces of pickled-plum tart.

Facts are lovely things.” Melchior nods. “Nearly as lovely as truth.

As Fidel Castro’s M–26–7 forces increased their attacks, the Cuban army was forced to withdraw into the larger towns for safety. This caused ever-increasing pressure on Batista. The United States government stopped supplying the Batista régime with weapons and ammunition. In 1958, in spite of an all-out attack and heavy aerial bombings upon Castro’s guerrilla forces, known as “Operation Verano,” the rebels continued advancing. At that time Batista’s Army had 10,000 soldiers surrounding the Sierra Maestra Mountains and Castro had 300 men under his command, many of them former Batista soldiers who joined the rebels after being appalled by the abuses that they were ordered to carry out. By closing off the major roads and rail lines, Castro put Batista’s forces at a severe disadvantage. On January 1, 1959, with his pockets stuffed with money and an airplane full of art, Presidente Fulgencio Batista flew the coop. Flying to the Dominican Republic before continuing to Portugal some months later, he left Anselmo Alliegro Mila to serve as Acting President. The next day he was relieved and Carlos Manuel Piedra, who had served as the senior member of the Supreme Court, was appointed Provisional President for a day. It was in accordance with the 1940 Cuban constitution, but his appointment was opposed by the new leader, Fidel Castro.

hippie musicians who sit cross-legged next to open guitar cases, hastily murdering Bob Marley tunes in hopes of scoring beer money.

Uncle Zhang, think back to what things were like one hundred twenty years ago. It was still the Qing Dynasty! It took over a month to go from Hangzhou to Beijing, and the emperor had to spend days cooped up in a sedan chair to get to his summer retreat.

Cooper. Who would one day likely turn that innocent gaze of his on Ian’s daughters. “You tell your boy to keep his hands to himself.” Alex groaned. “Oh god. I hadn’t even thought about that. You’re going to be that dad. You know the one who thinks his girls are perfect angels and all the boys around them are the devil? Can we wait until they’re born before you accuse Coop of trying something with them?” Ian kind of thought Cooper eyed Charlie’s baby bump as though he knew something good was going to come out of there. “You’re wrong. I know my girls won’t be angels, and that’s why I intend to keep an eye on them at all times. And they’re going to look like Charlie so they’ll be gorgeous. No doubt about it. Those girls are going to be trouble.

Magic. How can I explain what it’s like? It’s like that feeling when you’ve been cooped up inside all day and then you finally go outside and remember what fresh air tastes like. It’s like when you get up in the middle of the night and your mouth is gross and dry and you take a drink of water and the water is sweet. It’s like watching someone dive into a pool without leaving a ripple. It’s like waking up.

The last thing I need is the sheriff on my case. That's who I thought you were, as a matter of fact. They got women sheriffs these days, did you know that? Sherifettes." "So I've heard." "What about you?" she asked. "How'd you become a detective. That's a weird way to make a living, isn't it?" She was becoming real chatty now that I was on my way out and I wondered if I might pump her for more information. She seemed eager to prolong the contact, like someone who's been cooped up too long with a pack of preschool kids. "I sort of backed into detective work," I said, "but it beats selling shoes.

Brittney, our firstborn, is married with three children. My husband and I are extroverts, and Brittney is an introvert. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with her. She was shy, and I wondered how much to push her socially. My instincts told me she would eventually grow out of her shyness, and I wasn’t going to make a problem out of something that really wasn’t one. I regularly engaged her in conversation, encouraged her to talk about her ideas, her interests, her feelings, and what was going on inside, but I tried not to push. We did the things that happened naturally for our family. She attended classes once a week at a homeschool co-op, we went to church, and we got together with friends. I modeled what good conversation looks like, but I never really made it a topic of conversation because I felt it might make her self-conscious. Brittney made friends along the way. She loved drama class, and one of the reasons she enrolled in it was because she wanted to challenge herself to grow. When she was fifteen, she auditioned for and got the lead role in the spring play. Suddenly, she blossomed and took on a leadership role that defied all evidence she was an introvert at heart. She’s never been the same. She continued to grow in confidence and is a strong, gracious soul who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks when the situation calls for it. As a thirty-year-old mom who is homeschooling her kids, she tells me that pushing an introvert is the worst thing a parent can do. She believes she would never have grown so naturally into her own skin if we had not given her permission to do so at her own pace. After high school, she worked as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, and the patients there loved her. Not only can Brittney easily talk with people her own age, but with anyone she meets regardless of their age.

Once there was a bunny. This bunny had a birthday party. It was the bestest birthday party ever. Because that was the day the bunny got a bazooka. The bunny loved his bazooka. He blew up all sorts of things on the farm. He blew up the stable of Henrietta the Horse. He blew up the pen of Pugsly the Pig. He blew up the coop of Chuck the Chicken. “I have the bestest bazooka ever,” the bunny said. Then the farm friends proceeded to beat him senseless and steal his bazooka. It was the happiest day of his life. The end. Epilogue: Pugsly the Pig, now without a pen, was quite annoyed. When none of the others were looking, he stole the bazooka. He tied a bandana on his head and swore vengeance for what had been done to him. “From this day on,” he whispered, raising the bazooka, “I shall be known as Hambo.

The Great Chicken (Gallus gallus maximus): His breast is already very tough. He's very old. That's the reason why they decided no to kill him, his flesh would be of no use. He began to study like mad and became a lawyer. He abandoned all that he had and went to pontificate in a foreign hen-coop. After some years, he realised that he could tell what he knew and he couldn't stop talking. Now he has the appearance of a typical Mexican. He even speaks like a Mexican. But at heart he is an Indian chicken from Cuilapa. The only thing that he doesn't forget every night after talking and talking all day is to eat his tortillas and beans. Then he shuts himself away to read so he can continue talking. He doesn't understand a bloody word of it, but no matter, he talks and talks and reads and reads. On Saturdays he drinks Castillo rum. Only that brand because all others disagree with him. As he doesn't like whiskey because it cracks his tongue and in Altillo Universidad there's no Indita hooch, he's into Castillo rum that he drinks with Macaw. Shit-faced, the two birds talk for hours on end. There's no way Gallus ditto maximus will cough up any cash, sometimes he takes out a knotted handkerchief, undoes it and says I'll put one peso, then, afterwards, he makes a great fuss about it. When he's alone he becomes honest with himself, nostalgic for his old hen-coop he plays Luna de Xelajú, dresses like an Indian with a cloth on his head and starts to dance to the beat of the Guatemalan Son. Then he goes out like a light.

The East House Seven. Mint, Caro, Frankie, Coop, Heather, Jack, and me. The people responsible for the best days of my life, and the worst.

It is a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle, and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk, saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op. The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner. The hotel owner then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100, and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looks to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a stimulus package works. – Anonymous

It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle, and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op. The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner. The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment, the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill, and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

Cooper’s dark eyes studied my face then he smiled. “I really am crazy about you. Let me make it up to you.” “What about Nick?” I asked, daring him to freak out again. His jaw twitching, Cooper shrugged. “He’s a guy. He gets it. In fact, I think he’s hot for one of those giggly blondes in class. Shar, I think is the one. No need for me or anyone else to care about old Nick.” “So I can study with him?” Cooper narrowed his eyes and exhaled hard. “Why him?” “He’s in a bunch of my classes and he takes great notes.” “Great notes? Is that code?” “I waited all day to see you, Coop,” I said, placing my hand on his chest where I knew the cross was hiding under his white tee. “I missed you then you ruined everything by focusing on him. Will you keep doing that? I need you to focus on me.” “You want me, right? Not him.” “I want you so much, but I think it’s a mistake. You obviously don’t trust me.” “Don’t make it about trust. It’s not even about you.” “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, removing my hand. Cooper looked ready to grab my hand and return it to his chest. I saw him fight the urge then he forced a smile. A really fake smile that never reached his eyes. “It’s about me. It’s about my feeling like someone is trying to take away what I need. You aren’t doing anything. I just can’t have a man sniffing around my girl.” “He’s not sniffing around me.” “Don’t be naïve.” “You said he liked Shar.” “Why do you care who he likes?” Backing away, I sighed. “I’m taking the bus home.” “No, wait,” he said, wrapping his arms around me as I retreated. “Look, I’m jealous. That’s not a bad thing, is it? If you saw me with some chick, wouldn’t you be jealous?” “Yes, but I wouldn’t freak out and scare everyone.” “That’s because you’re classy. I was raised to be a caveman though. I should get credit for not taking you by the hair and dragging you back to my cave. You know, after clubbing your boyfriend to death first.” “You’re nuts.” “I’m teasing you.” “Not completely,” I said, staring at him in horror. “No, not completely. Well, I’m not kidding about clubbing him to death, but I’d never drag you back to my cave. Me want woman to want it bad.

Time travel and parenting are both difficult enough on their own. Combining them . . . ? Let’s just say that when your five-year-old daughter discovers that every day really could be her birthday party, your cupcake and piñata budget is going to need to be revised.”- Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1992   The

Since I’m an outdoors type of guy, it didn’t take me long to become frustrated at seminary. I hate being cooped up in a room with no windows (it’s the same problem I currently have with the duck call shop), especially during hunting season! I actually learned how to sleep with my eyes open in some of the more boring lectures. To break up the monotony, I ended up becoming the class clown and troublemaker. I constantly argued with instructors and fellow classmates. My main point of conflict was that I felt sometimes we studied the Bible as a legal document instead of a letter from God. I’m still convinced my point of view was correct, but I did a terrible job of communicating it. In fact, I nearly started several fights with my classmates. Our classes lasted from eight o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon, five days a week. During duck season, I got up very early to hunt before going to class, and then I went back to the blind as soon as classes were over. By the end of the school day, I was itching to get out of there! Well, one day this guy asked a question at four P.M. Then he asked a follow-up question after the bell rang. “Hey, why don’t you shut up?” I told him. Well, three guys met me in the parking lot after school. They were trying to rebuke me in a godly way for being rude. I responded with a misuse of Galatians 2:9: “How about I give you my right hand of fellowship?” Fortunately, they overlooked my anger, we resolved our differences in a Christian manner, and there were no fisticuffs.

The Mormons might not have maintained an order of covert killers, but they did build their own institutions: schools, temples, courts of arbitration, an elaborate private welfare system, a network of cooperatives. Those were the sorts of voluntary organizations that Americans often celebrate, but they appeared to be entwined with civil government in predominantly Mormon areas out west, with the same figures dominating both church and state. Sometimes they were more influential than the formal institutions of government. This stoked still more fears of subversion, and it led to some stunning restrictions on the Saints’ civil liberties. In 1884, the Idaho territory made it illegal for Latter-day Saints to vote, hold office, or serve on a jury. Legislators invoked the standard anti-Mormon conspiracy theories, but lurking behind those exotic charges were more ordinary resentments: opposition to plural marriage, jealousy of the Mormon co-ops’ economic clout,43 and, above all, Republicans’ eagerness to disenfranchise a group that in Idaho voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats.

When you run into yourself from another time, don’t worry too much about what you’re going to say. The universe won’t collapse if you fail to say exactly the right thing at the right time. Feel free to give yourself a few nice compliments, too. It’s not every day that you can surprise yourself with some sincere admiration.” -Excerpt from the Journal of Harold Quickly, 1997   The

Unlike the inside of a space shuttle or twenty-first century spacecraft, this interior looks uncluttered and clean. More Star Trek than Star Wars.

As Fidel Castro’s M–26–7 forces increased their attacks, the Cuban army was forced to withdraw into the larger towns for safety. This caused ever-increasing pressure on Batista. The United States government stopped supplying the Batista régime with weapons and ammunition. In 1958, in spite of an all-out attack and heavy aerial bombings upon Castro’s guerrilla forces, known as “Operation Verano,” the rebels continued advancing. At that time Batista’s Army had 10,000 soldiers surrounding the Sierra Maestra Mountains and Castro had 300 men under his command, many of them former Batista soldiers who joined the rebels after being appalled by the abuses that they were ordered to carry out. By closing off the major roads and rail lines, Castro put Batista’s forces at a severe disadvantage. On January 1, 1959, with his pockets stuffed with money and an airplane full of art, Presidente Fulgencio Batista flew the coop. Flying to the Dominican Republic before continuing to Portugal some months later, he left Anselmo Alliegro Mila to serve as Acting President. The next day he was relieved and Carlos Manuel Piedra, who had served as the senior member of the Supreme Court, was appointed Provisional President for a day. It was in accordance with the 1940 Cuban constitution, but his appointment was opposed by the new leader, Fidel Castro…. Piedra was 92 years old when he died in 1988.

Rowan kept her cooped up in his room for a few more days, and even once she told him she was feeling fine, he made her spend an extra half day in bed.

When that happened, Nana said, the collective gasp of Jalil’s family sucked the air out of Herat. His in-laws swore blood would flow. The wives demanded that he throw her out. Nana’s own father, who was a lowly stone carver in the nearby village of Gul Daman, disowned her. Disgraced, he packed his things and boarded a bus to Iran, never to be seen or heard from again. “Sometimes,” Nana said early one morning, as she was feeding the chickens outside the kolba, “I wish my father had had the stomach to sharpen one of his knives and do the honorable thing. It might have been better for me.” She tossed another handful of seeds into the coop, paused, and looked at Mariam. “Better for you too, maybe. It would have spared you the grief of knowing that you are what you are. But he was a coward, my father. He didn’t have the dil, the heart, for it.” Jalil didn’t have the dil either, Nana said, to do the honorable thing. To stand up to his family, to his wives and in-laws, and accept responsibility for what he had done. Instead, behind closed doors, a face-saving deal had quickly been struck. The next day, he had made her gather her few things from the servants’ quarters, where she’d been living, and sent her off. “You know what he told his wives by way of defense? That I forced myself on him. That it was my fault. Didi? You see? This is what it means to be a woman in this world.” Nana put down the bowl of chicken feed. She lifted Mariam’s chin with a finger. “Look at me, Mariam.” Reluctantly, Mariam did. Nana said, “Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.

Several weeks have passed since the incident at Lord Frisberts Hat Shop, and I’m saddened to say, I’ve yet to leave this hole. Rents due, and I could hear old Finby barking from down below, but my pockets run about as dry as the shavings on a chicken coop. On a good day, I’d gather some lint off my trousers, but not today. No, sir, not today.

Would you leave a hyena in charge of the chicken coop?

He woke to a frigid gust of wind. The coop rattled softly; the wire links rang like a tambourine. The sky was a deep indigo, and the starlight painted the Tower the color of a glacier. The night was as brutally cold as the day had been hot. Morning was still hours away.

For many years Cavedagna has followed books as they are made, bit by bit, he sees books be born and die every day, and yet the true books for him remain others, those of the time when for him they were like messages from other worlds. And so it is with authors; he deals with them every day, he knows their fixations, indecisions, susceptibilities, egocentricities, and yet the true authors remain those for him were only a name on a jacket, a word that was part of the title, authors who had the same reality as their characters, as the places mentioned in the books, who existed and didn’t exist at the same time, like those characters and countries. The author was the invisible point from which the books came, a void traveled by ghosts, an underground tunnel that put other worlds in communication with the chicken coop of his boyhood.

We always attach ourselves to something that we think relatively better or more valuable than other things, and we are blinded to real life by that. We must purify our system of value. For living out our own life, we must first of all clarify absolute value. Many people live for fulfillment of their desires. These people are like chickens at a poultry farm. I feel sorry for the chickens that just eat nutritious feed day and night and lay as many eggs as possible. This is all that they do in their lives. Chicken raisers keep the light on in the chicken coop all night to keep the chickens producing eggs efficiently. They calculate how many eggs can be laid by one chicken, and they kill the chickens when they become old.

Isnuck through the front door. Shooing Coop before me, I beelined for the stairs and the safety of my bedroom. I hoped to avoid notice for a few minutes—my clothes were dirty and smoke-tinged, my hair a tangled mess. But it was not to be. Whitney swung from the kitchen before I could blink. “Tory!” Smiling brightly, she smoothed her apron with manicured fingers. “I was just about to wonder what you’d gotten up to!” Whitney winked to assure me she was joking, but the cloying attempt at humor annoyed me anyway. It made me want to actually tell her. I was out on Loggerhead, fighting with another group of genetic freaks, when a black-ops military attack squad tried to capture me. Oh, and Ben and I made out on his boat. You? I smothered the suicidal notion. Mad impulses had stirred the pot enough for one night. “Studying.” The one line they always seemed to buy. “Practice test in a few days.

No; I think I want to travel. I've never seen much of the world, you know.’ ‘I should think not. It must have been an awful life for you cooped up here all these years.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine. ‘It gave me a lot of freedom.’ She caught the other’s gasp, and reddened a little. ‘It must sound foolish—saying that. Of course, I hadn’t much freedom in the downright physical sense—’ ‘I should think not,’ breathed Mrs Harrison, remembering that Katherine had seldom had that useful thing as a ‘day off.’ ‘But, in a way, being tied physically gives you lots of scope mentally. You’re always free to think. I’ve had a lovely feeling always of mental freedom.

When you have a bad day, ma fille, think about it from beginning to end. Walk your way through it. Was it really a bad day, or was it a few bad moments? What part of your day would you like to hold on to before you close your eyes? Find that good bit, and let it be the thing you fall asleep to.

The next day after work, we took the bumboat to Pulau Ubin. The tree was located after the Chek Jawa Quarry, where we cut through a dirt path to arrive at a clearing. The tree reminded me of a witch's fingers, upturned towards the sky. Its branches were gnarly and skinny, its trunk about the size of my waist. It looked like a severed hand, sticking out of its grave for one last snatch. 'It's as good as dead,' I said, patting it with my hand and feeling the dry bark. The sun had set, lending the remote island an eerie feel at dusk. We were only twenty minutes out of Singapore, yet Pulau Ubin with its small wooden homes and backyards filled with chicken coops felt like a different country altogether.

But worry can be a plague. It can cripple you if you let it. It eats away at your freedom.

Time travel, like all travel, broadens your horizons. It also reaffirms your appreciation for modern plumbing.”-Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1688

I kick a piece of bark back into the neighbor’s yard. “Is it so hard to just meet a nice girl and be happy? No, you had to pick a time traveler. . . and then die. And then not stay dead. Stupid idiot.

I have brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers for you today, m'lady. Will you do me the honor of accepting them? Though, of course, when held up against your radiant beauty, my princess... ... even lovely flowers such as these... ... are reduced to mere garnishes that only highlight your exquisiteness even more." "Er! I-I-Instructor Suzuki!" "So, yeah! Anyways... staying cooped up inside battling paperwork all day will wear you out. I brought along a handful of snacks... ... so how about we have ourselves a little tea break, hm?" "Ah! I-Instructor Suzuki, please! You must cease coming here every day like this! I-I am the foremost executive and leader of this Institute! I cannot in good conscience accept such personal gifts! Kyaaa!" "Miss Erina!" "Whoops! You okay? Princess... There. You had a cheese stick stuck in your hair.

Uh, I don’t know that you want to base your concept of the millennium on reality TV. I don’t think the people making those shows were exactly about authenticity.

A clock is a valuable possession, not only as a means of telling time, but also as something to ignore on particularly beautiful days.” -Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2002.

Another friend told me of the cheers he and his siblings let loose as they finally crossed the state line into sunny Florida. After being cooped up together in a car for two and a half days, they were eager to finally spend a day frolicking on the beach. Instead, upon seeing a billboard, my friend’s dad impulsively pulled over in St. Augustine to tour the home of Prince Achille Murat, the son of the brother-in-law of Napoleon. I’ll say that again: the home . . . of the son of the brother-in-law of Napoleon.

Throughout time, no matter the century, people believe they are the pinnacle of historical knowledge and modern science. None are. As a man of science myself it’s a humbling reminder that every truth I hold may one day be proven wrong.

It’s a strange feeling to know a time traveler is nowhere to be found in the universe at a present moment, but to have faith that they’ll be back one day.” –Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2087

After two days, Gilsa allowed her to rise awhile and follow her around the yard, though she was not to lift so much as a chicken’s egg. When Ani shadowed Gilsa into the coop anyway, Gilsa slapped her hands away from the task and then asked her what the chickens were saying. “‘People are here to take the eggs’ and so on. Chickens aren’t the best conversationalists.” “I’m glad,” said Gilsa. “Makes me feel better about eating them.

The houses were small, there was no air-conditioning, and TV had not yet penetrated, so when the weather was warm, social life was conducted on the front stoops, in the alleys, and with children running from house to house all day. A young homeowner was enveloped in a series of communal activities that, as Ehrenhalt puts it, "only the most determined loner could escape: barbecues, coffee klatches, volleyball games, baby-sitting co-ops and the constant bartering of household goods.

There are many dangers facing the human race in the centuries ahead. Sadly, most are problems brought on by ourselves. One of the most hazardous is the idea that we are smart enough to fix them all. A truly intelligent species knows that meddling is not often fixed by more meddling.

It was in times like these I wondered if dying could be a peaceful thing. I'd been cooped up the last few days, struggling with the flu—or at least, that was what I thought it was. My nose felt like a delicate piece of china, one sneeze away from shattering me completely. My throat? Violated. And not in a way that could be mistaken for pleasurable.

Sydney is someone who spends sixty hours a day cooped in a lab running tissue samples and the rest of the time watching way too many crime and investigation shows.