Definitely Will Come Again Quotes

Once again I come upon his famous definition of love: two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other.

Sitting next to her, Amy was wide-eyed, mesmerized at the sight of Jack heading over in all his seemingly pissed-off-once-again glory. "I changed my mind, Cam. If this was all a big setup and he's coming over to strip for me, I think I can handle it. I definitely can handle it.

Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work … If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

Everything is possible, and yet nothing is. All is permitted, and yet again, nothing. No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent. There is an explanation for everything, and yet there is none. Everything is both real and unreal, normal and absurd, splendid and insipid. There is nothing worth more than anything else, nor any idea better than any other. Why grow sad from one’s sadness and delight in one’s joy? What does it matter whether our tears come from pleasure or pain? Love your unhappiness and hate your happiness, mix everything up, scramble it all! Be a snowflake dancing in the air, a flower floating downstream! Have courage when you don’t need to, and be a coward when you must be brave! Who knows? You may still be a winner! And if you lose, does it really matter? Is there anything to win in this world? All gain is a loss, and all loss is a gain. Why always expect a definite stance, clear ideas, meaningful words? I feel as if I should spout fire in response to all the questions which were ever put, or not put, to me.

Honestly, the weirdest part is how they made it feel like this big coming out moment. Which can't be normal. As far as I know, coming out isn't something that straight kids generally worry about. That's the thing people wouldn't understand. This coming out thing. It's not even about me being gay, because I know deep down that my family would be fine with it. We're not religious. My parents are Democrats. My dad likes to joke around, and it would definitely be awkward, but I guess I'm lucky. I know they're not going to disown me. And I'm sure some people in school would give me hell, but my friends would be fine. Leah loves gay guys, so she'd probably be freaking thrilled. But I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get girlfriends. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.

Brad (Lauren's ex) ignored Hayley (she's Brad's ex girlfriend) and looked at me, he did a top to toe and back again then his gaze moved to Tate. "I'm here to tell you I'm suing you," he announced. Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg, Wing and my eyes moved to Tate. Tate stared at Brad then he said, "Come again?" "I'm suing you," Brad repeated. "For what?" Tate asked. "Alienation of affection," Brad answered. Without hesitation, Tate threw his head back and burst out laughing. Then he looked at me and remarked, "You're right, babe, this is fun." Ignoring Tate's comment, Brad declared, "You stole my wife." Tate looked back at Brad. "Yeah, bud, I did." Brad pointed at Tate and his voice was raised when he proclaimed, "See? You admit it." He threw his arm out. "I have witnesses." "Not that any judge'll hear your case, seein' as Lauren divorced your ass before I alienated her affection, but you manage it, I'll pay the fine. In the meantime, I'll keep alienating her affection. You should know, and feel free to share it with your lawyers," Tate continued magnanimously, "schedule's comin' out mornin' and night. Usually, in the mornin', she sucks me off or I make her come in the shower. Night, man…shit, that's even better. Definitely worth the fine." Sorry, it's just too long; I have to cut it off. But it continues…like that: "This is the good life?" (Brad) "Part of it," Tate replied instantly, taking his fists from the bar, leaning into his forearms and asking softly, in a tone meant both to challenge and provoke, "She ever ignite, lose so much control she'd attack you? Climb on top and fuck you so hard she can't breathe?" I watched Brad suffer that blow because I hadn't, not even close. We'd had good sex but not that good and Brad was extremely proud of his sexual prowess. He was convinced he was the best. And he knew, with Tate's words, he was wrong. "Jesus, you're disgusting," Brad muttered, calling up revulsion to save face. "She does that to me," Tate continued. "Fuck off," Brad snapped. "All the fuckin' time," Tate pushed. "Fuck off," Brad repeated. "It's fuckin' magnificent," Tate declared. "Thanks, honey," I whispered and grinned at him when his eyes came to me. I was actually expressing gratitude, although embarrassed by his conversation, but I was also kind of joking to get in Brad's face. Tate wasn't. His expression was serious when he said, "You are, Ace. Fuckin' magnificent.

Life is short, and that's why, I don't test people; because we all fail tests sometimes, but that is supposed to be okay! I don't play games with people; because people aren't toys. And I don't risk what I don't want to lose; because if I do lose it, it's definitely my loss and not theirs! How short is life, you ask me. Well, life is as short as one drop in eternity. I swim in a single drop in this basin of eternal waters, and after that drop evaporates, it's gone! But then you could argue that if life is just a drop, then why even bother? Well, yes it is a drop, but it's a meaningful drop, an unforgettable drop, and a beautiful one! It's so unforgettable, that when you come back again, if you choose to, you will remember it in your dreams at night! So you see, I don't test people, I don't play games, and I don't risk who and what I don't want to lose.

Ive told you before and my feelings haven't changed. I love you Sakura. Even if I cant match up to Natsume, my feelings would not lose to his. Even if we part ways and you forget about me, I will always think of you. Even if I grow old and leave this academy, I will definitely come see you. I'm here for you, until the day you look my way, I will always... I will always wait for you, together with Natsume. And this time around, I wont let Natsume steal you away again. Next time we meet, I will be more straight forward with my feelings, so that this time around, it wont be Natsume, but me you will choose, and me you will love. I wont lose, definitely." - Ruka

Oh,Mercer," he murmured against my temple once we'd come up for air, "we are so screwed." I pressed my face against his neck, breathing him in. "I know." "So what do we do?" Reluctantly, I tried to move away. It was hard to think when he was so close to me. "If we were good people, we'd never see each other again." His arms locked around my waist, pulling me back. "Okay,well, that's not happening. Plan B?" I smiled up at him, feeling ridiculously giddy for someone on the verge of ruining her life. "I don't have one.You?" He shook his head. "Nothing.But...look. I've spent basically my whole life pretending to be someone I'm not, faking some feelings, hiding others." Reaching down, he clasped my hand and lifted it so that our joined hands were trapped between our chests. "This thing with us is the only real thing I've had in a long time.You're the only real thing." He raised our hands and kissed my knuckles. "And I'm done pretending I don't want you." I had read a lot about swooning in the romance novels Mom had tried to hide from me,but I'd never felt in danger of doing it until now. Which was why a snarky comment was definitely called for. "Wow,Cross.I think you missed your calling.Screw demon hunting: you should clearly be writing Hallmark cards." His face broke into that crooked grin that was maybe my favorite sight in the whole world. "Shut up," he muttered before lowering his head and kissing me again. "Why is it," I said against his lips several moments later, "that we're always kissing in gross, dirty places like cellars and abandoned mills?" He laughed, pressing kisses to my jaw, then my neck. "Next time it'll be a castle, I promise.This is England, after all. Can't be too hard to find one.

Never having experienced inequality, therefore, the majority of straight white men will be absolutely oblivious to their own advantages – not because they must necessarily be insensitive, sexist, racist, homophobic or unaware of the principles of equality; but because they have been told, over and over again, that there is no inequality left for them – or anyone else – to experience – and everything they have experienced up to that point will only have proved them right. Let the impact of that sink in for a moment. By teaching children and teenagers that equality already exists, we are actively blinding the group that most benefits from inequality – straight white men – to the prospect that it doesn’t. Privilege to them feels indistinguishable from equality, because they’ve been raised to believe that this is how the world behaves for everyone. And because the majority of our popular culture is straight-white-male-dominated, stories that should be windows into empathy for other, less privileged experiences have instead become mirrors, reflecting back at them the one thing they already know: that their lives both are important and free from discrimination. And this hurts men. It hurts them by making them unconsciously perpetrate biases they’ve been actively taught to despise. It hurts them by making them complicit in the distress of others. It hurts them by shoehorning them into a restrictive definition masculinity from which any and all deviation is harshly punished. It hurts them by saying they will always be inferior parents and caregivers, that they must always be active and aggressive even when they long for passivity and quietude, that they must enjoy certain things like sports and beer and cars or else be deemed morally suspect. It hurts them through a process of indoctrination so subtle and pervasive that they never even knew it was happening , and when you’ve been raised to hate inequality, discovering that you’ve actually been its primary beneficiary is horrifying – like learning that the family fortune comes from blood money. Blog post 4/12/2012: Why Teaching Equality Hurts Men

A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this?-And-how many of us do know it? Not Lotze. Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally. Waking up. I suppose only a few are aware of all this. Isolated persons here and there. But the broad masses...what do they think? All these hundreds of thousands in this city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse the truth...? But, he thought, what does it mean, insane? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it? He thought, it is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousness. Their lack of knowledge about others. Their not being aware of what they do to others, the destruction they have caused and are causing. No, he thought. That isn't it. I don't know; I sense it, inuit it. But-they are purposely cruel...is that it? No. God, he thought, I can't find it, make it clear. Do they ignore parts of reality? Yes. But it is more. It is their plans. Yes, their plans. The conquering of the planets. Something frenzied and demented, as was their conquering of Africa, and before that, Europe and Asia. Their view; it is cosmic. Not of man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honorable men but of Ehre itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. Die Gute, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And they-these madmen-respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid Natur. And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. it is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate-confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man. What they do not comprehend is man's helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn't it better that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small...and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training – if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure. But you look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralizing invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they leaf to a pleasanter view of life (and an exaggerated idea of our own importance)... I agree that faith is essential to success in life (success of any sort) but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining. Anyone able to believe in all that religion implies obviously must have such faith, but I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world… It has just occurred to me that you may raise the question of the creator. A creator of what? ... I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our significant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more significant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith – as I have defined it.

So, you guyes are like us in other, uh, departments?” Deamon sat up, arching a brow. “Come again?” I felt my cheeks flush. “You know, like sex? I mean, you guys are all glowy and stuff. I don’t see how certain stuff would work.” Deamon’s lips curled into a half smile, and that was the only warning he gave. Moving unbelievably fast, I was on my back and he was above me in a flash. “Are you asking if I’m attracted to human girls?” he asked. Dark, wet waves of hair fell forward. Tiny droplets of water fell off the ends, splashing against my cheek. “Or are you asking if I’m attracted to you?” Using his hands, he lowered himself slowly. There wasn’t an inch of space between our bodies. Air fled my lungs at the contact of his body against mine. He was male and ripped in all the places I was soft. Being this close to him was startling, causing an array of sensations to zing through me. I shivered. Not from the cold, but from how warm and wonderful he felt. I could feel every breath he took, and when he shifted his hips, my eyes went wide and I gasped. Oh yeah, certain stuff was definitely working. Daemon rolled off me, onto his back beside me. “Next question?” he asked, voice deep and thick. I didn’t move. I stared wide-eyed at the blue-skies. “You could’ve just told me, you know?” I looked at him. “You didn’t have to show me.” “And what fund would there be in telling you?” He turned his head toward me. “Next question, Kitten?” “Why do you call me that?” “You remind me of a little fuzzy kitten, all claws and no bite.

So that’s why he needed me, that’s why he wanted me to go with them. Not that a white man couldn’t ride all over the South with a black woman, but if they were traveling in daytime by themselves, the black woman had to look like she was either going to work or coming from work. It wouldn’t be safe for her to be dressed like Pauline was now or to have that powder smelling on her breast like Pauline did now. No, they wouldn’t say anything to Bonbon; they probably wouldn’t say anything to Pauline in front of Bonbon. But if they caught her by herself they would definitely remind her to never do it again.

The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Again, "I can of my own self do nothing." And he then speaks of his purpose, his aim: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." A little later he adds: "The works that I do ye shall do also." Now again, these things mean something of a very definite nature, or they mean nothing at all.

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh.. people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

I don’t have the urge to call my friends and share my highs and lows. I don’t miss them with an ache so deeply etched inside that it keeps me awake at night, and I sure as fuck don’t drive for hours in hopes they’ll spend a few days with me. And I definitely don’t jerk off to the image of them coming on my cock. I don’t feel this way for my friends, Natalie—close or otherwise—so I dare you to call me your close friend again,” he warns. “I fucking dare you.

I smack into him as if shoved from behind. He doesn't budge, not an inch. Just holds my shoulders and waits. Maybe he's waiting for me to find my balance. Maybe he's waiting for me to gather my pride. I hope he's got all day. I hear people passing on the boardwalk and imagine them staring. Best-case scenario, they think I know this guy, that we're hugging. Worst-case scenario, they saw me totter like an intoxicated walrus into this complete stranger because I was looking down for a place to park our beach stuff. Either way, he knows what happened. He knows why my cheek is plastered to his bare chest. And there is definite humiliation waiting when I get around to looking up at him. Options skim through my head like a flip book. Option One: Run away as fast as my dollar-store flip flops can take me. Thing is, tripping over them is partly responsible for my current dilemma. In fact, one of them is missing, probably caught in a crack of the boardwalk. I'm getting Cinderella didn't feel this foolish, but then again, Cinderella wasn't as clumsy as an intoxicated walrus. Option two: Pretend I've fainted. Go limp and everything. Drool, even. But I know this won't work because my eyes flutter too much to fake it, and besides, people don't blush while unconscious. Option Three: Pray for a lightning bolt. A deadly one that you feel in advance because the air gets all atingle and your skin crawls-or so the science books say. It might kill us both, but really, he should have been paying more attention to me when he saw that I wasn't paying attention at all. For a shaved second, I think my prayers are answered because I go get tingly all over; goose bumps sprout everywhere, and my pulse feels like electricity. Then I realize, it's coming from my shoulders. From his hands. Option Last: For the love of God, peel my cheek off his chest and apologize for the casual assault. Then hobble away on my one flip-flop before I faint. With my luck, the lightning would only maim me, and he would feel obligated to carry me somewhere anyway. Also, do it now. I ease away from him and peer up. The fire on my cheeks has nothing to do with the fact that it's sweaty-eight degrees in the Florida sun and everything to do with the fact that I just tripped into the most attractive guy on the planet. Fan-flipping-tastic. "Are-are you all right?" he says, incredulous. I think I can see the shape of my cheek indented on his chest. I nod. "I'm fine. I'm used to it. Sorry." I shrug off his hands when he doesn't let go. The tingling stays behind, as if he left some of himself on me. "Jeez, Emma, are you okay?" Chloe calls from behind. The calm fwopping of my best friend's sandals suggests she's not as concerned as she sounds. Track star that she is, she would already be at my side if she thought I was hurt. I groan and face her, not surprised that she's grinning wide as the equator. She holds out my flip-flop, which I try not to snatch from her hand. "I'm fine. Everybody's fine," I say. I turn back to the guy, who seems to get more gorgeous by the second. "You're fine, right? No broken bones or anything?" He blinks, gives a slight nod. Chloe setts her surfboard against the rail of the boardwalk and extends her hand to him. He accepts it without taking his eyes off me. "I'm Chloe and this is Emma," she says. "We usually bring her helmet with us, but we left it back in the hotel room this time.

We could just chill if you want." Emma raises a brow at Rachel. Rachel shrugs her innocence. "Nuh-uh. Don't look at me. I didn't teach him that." "Picked it up all on my own," he says, retrieving his pencil from the floor. "Figures," Emma sneers. "Aww, don't hate on me, boo." "Okay, I'm drawing the line at 'boo.' And don't call me 'shorty' either," Emma says. He laughs. "That was next." "No doubt. So, did anyone explain how you chill?" Galen shrugs. "As far as I can tell, chillin' is the equivalent of being in a coma, only awake." "That's about right." "Yeah. Doesn't sound that appealing. Are all humans lazy?" "Don't push it, Highness." But she's smirking. "If I'm Highness, then you're 'boo.' Period." Emma growls, but it doesn't sound as fierce as she intends. In fact, it's adorable. "Jeez! I won't call you Majesty either. And you Will. Not. Ever Call me 'boo' again." His grin feels like it reaches all the way to his ears as he nods. "Did...did I just win an argument?" She rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid. We tied." He laughs. "If you say I won, I'll let you open your present." She glances at the gift bag and bites her lip-also adorable. She looks back at him. "Maybe I don't care about the present." "Oh, you definitely care," he says, confident. "No. I definitely do NOT," she says, crossing her arms. He runs a hand through his hair. If she makes it any more difficult, he'll have to tell her where they're going. He gives his best nonchalant shrug. "That changes everything. I just figured since you like history...Anyway, just forget it. I won't bother you about it anymore." He stands and walks over to the bag, fingering the polka-dot tissue paper Rachel engorged it with. "Even if I say you win, it's still a lie, you know." Emma huffs. Galen won't take the bait. Not today. "Fine. It's a lie. I just want to hear you say it." With an expression mixing surprise and suspicion in equal parts, she says it. And it sounds so sweet coming from those lips. "You won.

Now I'll never see him again, and maybe it's a good thing. He walked out of my life last night for once and for all. I know with sickening certainty that it's the end. There were just those two dates we had, and the time he came over with the boys, and tonight. Yet I liked him too much - - - way too much, and I ripped him out of my heart so it wouldn't get to hurt me more than it did. Oh, he's magnetic, he's charming; you could fall into his eyes. Let's face it: his sex appeal was unbearably strong. I wanted to know him - - - the thoughts, the ideas behind the handsome, confident, wise-cracking mask. "I've changed," he told me. "You would have liked me three years ago. Now I'm a wiseguy." We sat together for a few hours on the porch, talking, and staring at nothing. Then the friction increased, centered. His nearness was electric in itself. "Can't you see," he said. "I want to kiss you." So he kissed me, hungrily, his eyes shut, his hand warm, curved burning into my stomach. "I wish I hated you," I said. "Why did you come?" "Why? I wanted your company. Alby and Pete were going to the ball game, and I couldn't see that. Warrie and Jerry were going drinking; couldn't see that either." It was past eleven; I walked to the door with him and stepped outside into the cool August night. "Come here," he said. "I'll whisper something: I like you, but not too much. I don't want to like anybody too much." Then it hit me and I just blurted, "I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." He was definite, "Nobody knows me." So that was it; the end. "Goodbye for good, then," I said. He looked hard at me, a smile twisting his mouth, "You lucky kid; you don't know how lucky you are." I was crying quietly, my face contorted. "Stop it!" The words came like knife thrusts, and then gentleness, "In case I don't see you, have a nice time at Smith." "Have a hell of a nice life," I said. And he walked off down the path with his jaunty, independent stride. And I stood there where he left me, tremulous with love and longing, weeping in the dark. That night it was hard to get to sleep.

What is hope? Is it the ambition of discovering for the first time what the carnal definition of physical love is without understanding the concept of true passion? Or is it imagination running wild and free fueled by the dram that tonight will last forever and tomorrows will always come as you are blinded by the brilliance of another's smile? Is it a theory of inevitability that relies on fate or destiny bringing two souls together for their one shot at true and unbridled happiness? Or is it a plea to erase a past that used to hold the potential for limitless smiles and endless laughs? I define hope as a narcotic. It courses through our veins, igniting ideas and feelings and emotions that all work in collaboration to produce a better tomorrow, while leaving today, but a distant memory. The essence of its unknown and unseen promise is beautiful and addicting to those who are in need of its satiating grace. The dependence on the idea of possibility can become a crutch however; an excuse for ignoring the here and now. It can swiftly morph from a therapeutic escape to an addictive obsession that somewhere over the rainbow lies the answer that will make everything right again. I am thankful to call myself a true addict to hope's mind altering panacea. It's blissful nirvana can seem both inconceivably irrational yet entirely fathomable to anyone lost in a sea of uncertainty. Just as age brings wisdom, experience brings the understanding that no matter what pot of gold lies at the end of your hopeful rainbow, the relief it casts over tragedy and heartache is the power behind it's true magic. To the hope that resides in the depths of my being, thank you.......

Justin: I am falling so in love with you. Her body electrified. Celeste wiped her eyes and read his text again. The drone of the plane disappeared; the turbulence was no more. There was only Justin and his words. Justin: I lose myself and find myself at the same time with you. Justin: I need you, Celeste. I need you as part of my world, because for the first time, I am connected to someone in a way that has meaning. And truth. Maybe our distance has strengthened what I feel between us since we’re not grounded in habit or daily convenience. We have to fight for what we have. Justin: I don’t know if I can equate what I feel for you with anything else. Except maybe one thing, if this makes any sense. Justin: I go to this spot at Sunset Cliffs sometimes. It’s usually a place crowded with tourists, but certain times of year are quieter. I like it then. And there’s a high spot on the sandstone cliff, surrounded by this gorgeous ice plant, and it overlooks the most beautiful water view you’ve ever seen. I’m on top of the world there, it seems. Justin: And everything fits, you know? Life feels right. As though I could take on anything, do anything. And sometimes, when I’m feeling overcome with gratitude for the view and for what I have, I jump so that I remember to continue to be courageous because not every piece of life will feel so in place. Justin: It’s a twenty-foot drop, the water is only in the high fifties, and it’s a damn scary experience. But it’s a wonderful fear. One that I know I can get through and one that I want. Justin: That’s what it’s like with you. I am scared because you are so beyond anything I could have imagined. I become so much more with you beside me. That’s terrifying, by the way. But I will be brave because my fear only comes from finally having something deeply powerful to lose. That’s my connection with you. It would be a massive loss. Justin: And now I am in the car and about to see you, so don’t reply. I’m too flipping terrified to hear what you think of my rant. It’s hard not to pour my heart out once I start. If you think I’m out of mind, just wave your hands in horror when you spot the lovesick guy at the airport. Ten minutes went by. He had said not to reply, so she hadn’t. Justin: Let’s hope I don’t get pulled over for speeding… but I’m at a stoplight now. Justin: God, I hope you aren’t… aren’t… something bad. Celeste: Hey, Justin? Justin: I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPLY! Justin: I know, I know. But I’m happy you did because I lost it there for a minute. Celeste: HEY, JUSTIN? Justin: Sorry… Hey, Celeste? Celeste: I am, unequivocally and wholly falling in love with you, too. Justin: Now I’m definitely speeding. I will see you soon.

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers - your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and damned rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.

everything. I would never want depression to be a public or political excuse, but I think that once you have gone through it, you get a greater and more immediate understanding of the temporary absence of judgment that makes people behave so badly—you learn even, perhaps, how to tolerate the evil in the world.” On the happy day when we lose depression, we will lose a great deal with it. If the earth could feed itself and us without rain, and if we conquered the weather and declared permanent sun, would we not miss grey days and summer storms? As the sun seems brighter and more clear when it comes on a rare day of English summer after ten months of dismal skies than it can ever seem in the tropics, so recent happiness feels enormous and embracing and beyond anything I have ever imagined. Curiously enough, I love my depression. I do not love experiencing my depression, but I love the depression itself. I love who I am in the wake of it. Schopenhauer said, “Man is [content] according to how dull and insensitive he is”; Tennessee Williams, asked for the definition of happiness, replied “insensitivity.” I do not agree with them. Since I have been to the Gulag and survived it, I know that if I have to go to the Gulag again, I could survive that also; I’m more confident in some odd way than I’ve ever imagined being. This almost (but not quite) makes the depression seem worth it. I do not think that I will ever again try to kill myself; nor do I think

Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of falsehood. Oh, at first perhaps it began innocently, with a jest, coquetry, with amorous play, perhaps indeed with a germ, but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts and pleased them. Then sensuality was soon begotten, sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy—cruelty . . . Oh, I don't know, I don't remember; but soon, very soon the first blood was shed. They marvelled and were horrified, and began to be split up and divided. They formed into unions, but it was against one another. Reproaches, upbraidings followed. They came to know shame, and shame brought them to virtue. The conception of honour sprang up, and every union began waving its flags. They began torturing animals, and the animals withdrew from them into the forests and became hostile to them. They began to struggle for separation, for isolation, for individuality, for mine and thine. They began to talk in different languages. They became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said that truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science appeared. As they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly remembered what they had lost, in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent. They even laughed at the possibility o this happiness in the past, and called it a dream. They could not even imagine it in definite form and shape, but, strange and wonderful to relate, though they lost all faith in their past happiness and called it a legend, they so longed to be happy and innocent once more that they succumbed to this desire like children, made an idol of it, set up temples and worshipped their own idea, their own desire; though at the same time they fully believed that it was unattainable and could not be realised, yet they bowed down to it and adored it with tears! Nevertheless, if it could have happened that they had returned to the innocent and happy condition which they had lost, and if someone had shown it to them again and had asked them whether they wanted to go back to it, they would certainly have refused. They answered me: "We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and weep over it, we grieve over it; we torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that merciful Judge Who will judge us and whose Name we know not. But we have science, and by the means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.

The psychological definition of an invalidating environment is an environment where the responses of the child are pervasively treated as inaccurate, unrealistic, trivial, or pathological, independent of the actual validity of the behavior. This is really a mess of words, but here are some examples of invalidating responses: The child says he doesn’t like green beans. “Of course you like green beans. Everybody likes green beans.” The child brings home a grade of 98 on a test. “Why didn’t you get a 100? I know you could have gotten a 100.” The child says she is hungry. “You are not hungry. You just ate.” The child comes home crying after a fight with a friend. “You didn’t need him as a friend anyway.” The teenager comes home after a terrible day at high school. “Don’t you complain. These are the best days of your life.” (Honestly, would you want to do high school again?)

As a woman, you walk into all kinds of unknown situations that cause you to fall in love, put someone else’s needs before your own, and make unbelievable sacrifices. As time goes by, falling in love has its consequences. You fall in love with your mate, children, family, and job. However, you do not receive a fraction of what you have given in return. Sadly, nobody sees you are beyond exhausted. They want you to go, go and go without complaining. If they carefully pay attention and think about it; when was the last time they saw you smile, truly smile? When was the last time they saw you happy, truly happy? When was the last time they offered to help you, as opposed to asking could you do this or that? When was the last time they gave you a moment to breathe? As you work so hard and give so much of yourself, you think things will finally line up. However, that is not the case. Once you set someone up to help them prosper, things in your life start to crumble, and slowly but surely you begin to feel violated. Your hard work is soon forgotten as they drop you where you stand. Life isn’t fair and it is hard. It’s even harder when you love so hard and lose so much. You are not perfect. You have your flaws, and most definitely you have your moments. However, you have a good heart and you try to treat others how you want to be treated. Time and time again you give people all of your heart by trying to be loving and understanding. You’ve learned that when it comes to some people, nothing would ever be good enough. You have to be willing to accept that you loved them to the best of your ability, and only lost someone who caused you to lose more of yourself. Those people aren’t worth saving because the question is, who will save you? However, the love you gave wasn’t in vain; it helped you to become a better person. The loss opened your eyes to see that you deserve so much better. It is alright to cry. You are finding your strength and you are beginning to find the voice within. You are special. You are unique. You are loved. There’s no need to be afraid. Life is a journey! You will make it. It’s okay to let go of the loss and count it all pure joy!

Aren’t you a little young to be a captain? Not that I’m sure you weren’t wonderful at it,” I added hastily, “but Frank’s got to be your same age, and Mr. Graces and Mr. Liu are both older than you. How on earth did it happen?” He shut down. It was like a curtain being pulled across a window. This was a subject he definitely did not wish to discuss. “The title is honorary,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “I can’t stop them calling me that, even though I’ve asked them not to. I was the highest-ranking officer to survive the…accident.” Accident? I supposed this was another one of those things he didn’t want to tell me because it would make me hate him. Recognizing that dropping that particular topic-for now at least-would probably be best. I said, “John, I can warn you about the Furies. And I know exactly where the coffin is. All you have to do is take me back to Isla Huesos-just this one time, to help Alex-and I’ll never mention going there again. I’ll even,” I said, reaching up to straighten the collar of his leather jacket, which had gone askew, “forgive you for the waffles-“ John seized me by both shoulders, pulling me towards him so abruptly that Hope gave an alarmed flap of her wings. “Pierce,” he said. “Do you mean that?” When I pushed back some of the hair that had tumbled into my face and raised my dark eyes to meet his light ones, I saw that he was staring down at me with an intensity that burned. “You’ll never mention going back to Isla Huesos again if I take you there right now, this once, to talk to your cousin Alex?” he demanded. “You’ll give…cohabitation another chance?” His sudden fierceness was making me nervous. “Of course, John,” I said. “But it’s not like I have a choice.” “What if you did?” he asked, his grip tightening. I blinked. “But I can’t. You said-“ He gave me a little shake. “Never mind what I said. What if I was wrong?” I reached up to lay a hand on his cheek. It felt a little scratchy, because he hadn’t shaved. I didn’t care about stubble. What I cared about was the desperate need I saw in his eyes. The need for me. “I’d come back,” I said, simply, “to stay with you.” A second later, the late-and everything around it-was gone.

TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN   The best definition for grace I know comes from Paul Zahl: Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable…. The cliché definition of grace is “unconditional love.” It is a true cliché, for it is a good description of the thing.… Let’s go a little further, though. Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold…. Grace is one-way love.1 Grace doesn’t make demands. It just gives. And from our vantage point, it always gives to the wrong person. We see this over and over again in the Gospels: Jesus is always giving to the wrong people—prostitutes, tax collectors, half-breeds. The most extravagant sinners of Jesus’s day receive His most compassionate welcome. Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head.

I didn't have a choice." "Are you saying...What are you saying?" Is he...could he be talking about me? He runs a hand through his hair. I've never seen him this emotional before. He's always so controlled, so sure of himself. "I'm saying you're what I want, Emma. I'm saying I'm in love with you." He steps forward and lifts his hand to my cheek, blazing a line of fire with his fingertips as they trace down to my mouth. "How do you think it would make me feel to see you with Grom?" he whispers. "Like someone ripped my heart out and put it through Rachel's meat grinder, that's how. Probably worse. It would probably kill me. Emma, please don't cry." I throw my hands in the air. "Don't cry? Are you serious? Why did you come here, Galen? Did you think it would make me feel better to know that you do love me, but that it still won't work out? That I still have to mate with Grom for the greater good? Don't you tell me not to cry, Galen! I...c...c...can't h...h...help-" The waterworks soak me. Galen looks at me, hands by his side, helpless as a trapped crab. I'm bordering on hyperventilation, and pretty soon I'll start hiccupping. This is too much. His expression is so severe, it looks like he's in physical pain. "Emma," he breathes. "Emma, does this mean you feel the same way? Do you care for me at all?" I laugh, but it sounds sharper than I intended, because of a hiccup. "What does it matter how I feel, Galen? I think we pretty much covered why. No need to rehash things, right?" "It matters, Emma." He grabs my hand and pulls me to him again. "Tell me right now. Do you care for me?" "If you can't tell that I'm stupid in love with you, Galen, then you aren't a very good ambassador for the hum-" His mouth covers mine, cutting me off. This kiss isn't gentle like the first one. It's definitely not sweet. It's rough, demanding, searching. And disorienting. There's not a part of me that isn't melting against Galen, not a part that isn't combusting with his fevered touch. I accidentally moan into his lips. He takes it for his cue to lift me off my feet, to pull me up to his height for more leverage. I take his groan for my cue to kiss him harder. He ignores his cell phone ringing in his pocket. I ignore the rest of the universe. Even when headlights approach, I'm willing to overlook their intrusion and keep kissing. But, prince that he is, Galen is a little more refined than me at this moment. He gently pries his lips from mine and sets me down. His smile is both intoxicated and intoxicating. "We still need to talk." "Right," I say, but I'm shaking my head. He laughs. "I didn't come all the way to Atlantic City to make you cry." "I'm not crying." I lean into him again. He doesn't refuse my lips, but he doesn't do them justice either, planting a measly little kiss on them before stepping back.

Anwen uncrossed her arms, adjusted her skirt. She glanced from me to Watson. "If it's not an imposition," she said. "You can come too, Jamie. If you want." At that, I pinched his leg. "No!" he yelped. "No, go on. I, ah. Have a lecture." "Are you sure?" I ask him, sniffling. "I'm sure," he said, and reached out, very gently, to brush away a tear from my face. His dark eyes softened. He really was a better actor than I gave him credit for. "I'll see you later, pumpkin." As I led Anwen out to the street, I texted from my bag: Watson? Yes, pumpkin? New condition: you cease and desist all gourd-related nicknames. Done. But pinch me again, and I'll start calling you pickle. Do that, and I will find and them publish your diaries in a website with a vociferous comments section. Thought I was not a gourd, I was most definitely not a vinegar-soaked phallic object.

Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, was not above spitting at her unfortunate son when he chose to sit down in his own great hall to take his boots off. ‘If Madge Mumblecrust comes down those stairs once again for a morsel of fowl’s liver with ginger, or pressed meats with almond-milk, I shall retire to a little wicker house in the forest and cast spells which will sink Venice into the sea for ever, and Madame Donati with it. The Church,’ said Sybilla definitely, ‘should excommunicate girls who do not replace lids on sticky jars and wash their hair every day with the best towels.

I was only trying to get you to come here. You know,classic honeymoon. Sweet young wife teaches wizened old grouch how to have fun.That sort of thing." "Wizened old grouch?" he echoed in astonishment. "The old part I can accept, even the grouch.But I am definitely not wizened." In punishment he tugged her hair. "Ow!" She swung around and glared indignantly at him. "Wizened sort of seemed to fit.You know, wizard, wizened." Gregori crushed her hair to his face to hide the sudden emotion overwhelming him. The fragrance of flowers and fresh air surrounded him.So this was what he had sought all those long centuries. Fun. Belonging.Someone with whom to share laughter and teasing and to make even the difficult moments in life beautiful.She was so much a part of him, he couldn't return to a barren existence again.He would never choose to stay in the world without her. "Do you think I am too old, Savannah?" he asked softly,taking strands of her hair into his mouth. So soft.So much like silk but even better. "Not old,Gregori," she corrected gently. "Just old-fashioned. You have a tendency to believe women should always do as they're told." He found himself laughing. "Not that you do.

The word treatment is usually applied to a prayer that is made for some specific purpose, as distinct from a general prayer, which is really a visit with God. You must remember that a treatment is a definite practical action, having a definite object and a definite beginning and end. It is in fact a surgical operation on the soul. Let us suppose that you decide to heal a certain difficulty by prayer. You know that your difficulty must be caused by some negative thought charged with fear and located in the subconscious mind. You therefore turn to God, and remind yourself of His goodness, His limitless power, and His care for you. As you work the fear will begin to dissolve, and the awareness of the Truth corrects the erroneous beliefs themselves. Thank God for the healing that you believe will come—and then you keep your thought off the matter until you feel led, after an interval, to treat again. He sent his word, and healed them … (Psalm 107:20).

So indeed, yesterday I attended Feel Good Fitness. It was my first time. And also my last. When it was over and the instructor—“Call me Tina”—gushed that I should definitely come again next week, I told her right then and there that once was enough.

Failures are very important - they mean a great deal to me. After a big failure, I go into a deep depression and a very dark part of my body, but soon afterward I come back to life again, alive to something else. I always question artists who are successful in whatever they do - I think what that means is that they're repeating themselves and not taking enough risks. If you experiment, you have to fail. By definition, experimenting means going to territory where you've never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you're going to succeed? Having the courage to face the unknown is so important. I love to live in the spaces in between, the places where you leave the comforts of your home and your habits behind and make yourself completely open to chance.

The Charcoal Sky Sometimes you go to the wrong place, but the right way comes and finds you. It might make you trip over it or speak to it. Or it might come to you when a day is stripped apart by night and ask you to take its hand and forget this wrong place, this illusion where you stand. I think of this mess in my mind and the girl who walked through it to stand before me and let her voice come close. I remember brick walls. There are moments when you can only stand and stare, watching the world forget you as you remove yourself from it - when you overcome it and cease to exist as the person you were. It calls your name, but you're gone. You hear nothing. See nothing. You've gone somewhere else. You've gone somewhere to find a different definition of yourself, and it's a place where nothing else can touch you. Nothing else can swing on your thoughts. It's only yourself, flat against the charcoal sky, for one moment. Then flat on the earth again, where the world doesn't recognize you anymore. Your name is what it always was. You look and sound like you always did, yet you're not the same, and when a city wind begins to call you, it's voice doesn't only hit the edges. It connects. It blows into you rather than in spite of you. Sometimes you feel like it's calling out for you.

35. The personal self seeks to feast on life, through a failure to perceive the distinction between the personal self and the spiritual man. All personal experience really exists for the sake of another: namely, the spiritual man. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on experience for the sake of the Self, comes a knowledge of the spiritual man. The divine ray of the Higher Self, which is eternal, impersonal and abstract, descends into life, and forms a personality, which, through the stress and storm of life, is hammered into a definite and concrete self-conscious individuality. The problem is, to blend these two powers, taking the eternal and spiritual being of the first, and blending with it, transferring into it, the self-conscious individuality of the second; and thus bringing to life a third being, the spiritual man, who is heir to the immortality of his father, the Higher Self, and yet has the self-conscious, concrete individuality of his other parent, the personal self. This is the true immaculate conception, the new birth from above, "conceived of the Holy Spirit." Of this new birth it is said: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit: ye must be born again." Rightly understood, therefore, the whole life of the personal man is for another, not for himself. He exists only to render his very life and all his experience for the building up of the spiritual man. Only through failure to see this, does he seek enjoyment for himself, seek to secure the feasts of life for himself; not understanding that he must live for the other, live sacrificially, offering both feasts and his very being on the altar; giving himself as a contribution for the building of the spiritual man. When he does understand this, and lives for the Higher Self, setting his heart and thought on the Higher Self, then his sacrifice bears divine fruit, the spiritual man is built up, consciousness awakes in him, and he comes fully into being as a divine and immortal individuality.

If you read the literature of the great religions, time and time again you come across descriptions of what is usually referred to as “spiritual experience.” You will find that in all the various traditions this modality of spiritual experience seems to be the same, whether it occurs in the Christian West, the Islamic Middle East, the Hindu world of Asia, or the Buddhist world. In each culture, it is quite definitely the same experience, and it is characterized by the transcendence of individuality and by a sensation of being one with the total energy of the universe.

All soul is immortal. For that which is always in movement is immortal; that which moves something else, and is moved by something else, in ceasing from movement ceases from living. So only that which moves itself, because it does not abandon itself, never stops moving. But it is also source and first principle of movement for the other things which move. Now a first principle is something which does not come into being. For all that comes into being must come into being from a first principle, but a first principle itself cannot come into being from anything at all; for if a first principle came into being from anything, it would not do so from a first principle. Since it is something that does not come into being, it must also be something which does not perish. For if a first principle is destroyed, neither will it ever come into being from anything itself nor will anything else come into being from it, given that all things must come into being from a first principle. It is in this way, then, that that which moves itself is a first principle of movement. It is not possible for this either to be destroyed or to come into being, or else the whole universe and the whole of that which comes to be might collapse together and come to a halt, and never again have a source from which things will be moved and come to be. And since that which is moved by itself has been shown to be immortal, it will incur no shame to say that this is the essence and the definition of the soul

Go to dinner with me?” His voice whispers against my ear. I start to shake my head when his fingertip lightly traces the birdcage tattoo on my arm. My eyes shut at the sensation. His touch. “I dream about you almost every night.” Join the club, buddy, I want to tell him. I dream about me every night, too… well, until I met him. Now I dream too damn much about him. “Just one date and I will leave you alone if you never want to see me again. Deal?” I open my eyes to gaze into his. There are too many things happening at once. Everything within me says to tell him no. Nothing good can come of this. I know what I have to tell him. “Dinner, not a date,” I say, looking him square in the eyes. Holy hell! What did you just do, Keller? Really? Seriously? He grins, not hiding his happiness at my words. I step away, allowing him time to button his shirt up. “Dinner then dessert, and, Keller, it will definitely be a date,” he says,

He burned,his body drawn bow-taut. If he did not sheathe himself soon within his wife's silken depths... She looked at him directly, her eyes wide and candid. "All day I have wanted to...touch you." His dark brows rose. All day? Well that was certainly pleasing but it didn't make his condition any easier to bear. Harshly, he said, "You don't have to ask permission to touch me." She shrugged her lovely, almost bare shoulders. "I know,but under the circumstances..." Her gaze drifted down his body, rather pointedly, he thought. Which definitely did not help matters at all. "You can touch me later," he said and reached for her again. She pressed her palms against his chest, tossed back her gleaming hair, and laughed. Really,he was going to die from this. "Just a little now...please?" Dragon squeezed his eyes shut and reached deep down inside for the control that was so instrinsic a part of his warrior's nature.It had to be in there somewhere.Any moment now he'd stumble across it.

Do I get to choose what she commands you to do? Come on, let me, it’ll be fun.” Jai laughed humorlessly. “I said I don’t want her commanding me to do something asinine, kid.” Charlie’s grin disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced. “I told you not to call me, kid, Jinn boy. I’m what… two years younger than you, douchebag?” “Try five. And that’s only in physical years.” “What, you trying to say I’m not mature?” “Oh those socks you’re wearing definitely are. Have you heard of detergent? A shower? Hygiene?” “I shower, you militant, glorified fucking babysitter.” “Watch it, kid.” “Kid? I am this close to taking a swing at you, you overblown piece of-” “Oh for the love of God!” Ari cried, throwing her hands up, her head pounding. So much for their strained peace treaty. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”Despite their matching glowers, both of them slammed their lips closed and glared at one another. Ari heaved a sigh of relief as she pulled a chilled can of soda out of the refrigerator. At least the soda still felt nice sliding down her throat. Not the same as an ice cold Coke on a blazing summer day but still nice. She took a refreshing swig and turned towards her male companions once again. Blasts of frost shot out from Jai’s eyes only to be met by the simmering black heat of Charlie’s angry gaze. Rolling her eyes and biting back the guilt that she was somehow responsible for the animosity between the only two people she could count on right now, Ari spilled into the chair between them and Jai slowly sunk back down into his. “So what will I command you?” she asked quietly, ignoring the way her fingers trembled as she played with the tab on her soda can. When she got no answer, she glanced up to see Jai’s face going red, the veins in his head throbbing. “Dude, what’s wrong?” Charlie asked quietly, looking at Ari in alarm. “Is he choking?” Ari’s heart flipped in her chest at the thought and she reached across the table to grab his arm. “Jai?” His eyes widened and he waved a large hand at his throat and mouth and then pointed at her. What the hell?! “Jesus Christ, he can’t talk?” Charlie asked incredulously. “Is this a joke?

Whatever you want," he said. "Will you please come here now?" I slipped a piece of protective tissue over my drawing and flipped the book closed. A piece of blue scratch paper slid out, the line I'd copied from Edward;s poetry book. "Hey. Translate for me, Monsieur Bainbridge." I set the sketchbook on my stool and joined him on the chaise. He tugged me onto his lap and read over his head. "'Qu'ieu sui avinen, leu lo sai.' 'That I am handsome, I know." "Verry funny." "Very true." He grinned. "The translation. That's what it says. Old-fashionedly." I thought of Edward's notation on the page, the reminder to read the poem to Diana in bed, and rolled my eyes. You're so vain.I bet you think this song is about you..."Boy and their egos." Alex cupped my face in his hands. "Que tu est belle, tu le sais." "Oh,I am not-" "Shh," he shushed me, and leaned in. The first bell came way too soon. I reluctantly loosened my grip on his shirt and ran my hands over my hair. He prompty thrust both hands in and messed it up again. "Stop," I scolded, but without much force. "I have physics," he told me. "We're studying weak interaction." I sandwiched his open hand between mine. "You know absolutely nothing about that." "Don't be so quick to accept the obvious," he mock-scolded me. "Weak interaction can actually change the flavor of quarks." The flavor of quirks, I thought, and vaguely remembered something about being charmed. I'd sat through a term of introductory physics before switching to basic biology. I'd forgotten most of that as soon as I'd been tested on it,too. "I gotta go." Alex pushed me to my feet and followed. "Last person to get to class always gets the first question, and I didn't do the reading." "Go," I told him. "I have history. By definition, we get to history late." "Ha-ha. I'll talk to you later." He kissed me again, then walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

The activists also had instructions to return, to surprise people in order to catch them unaware and with their food unguarded. In many places the brigades came more than once. Families were searched, and then searched again to make sure that nothing remained. “They came three times,” one woman remembered, “until there was nothing left. Then they stopped coming.”17 Brigades sometimes arrived at different times of day or night, determined to catch whoever had food red-handed.18 If it happened that a family was eating a meagre dinner, the activists sometimes took bread off the table.19 If it happened that soup was cooking, they pulled it off the stove and tossed out the contents. Then they demanded to know how it was possible the family still had something to put in the soup.20 People who seemed able to eat were searched with special vigour; those who weren’t starving were by definition suspicious. One survivor remembered that her family had once managed to get hold of some flour and used it to bake bread during the night. Their home was instantly visited by a brigade that had detected the noise and sounds of cooking in the house. They entered by force and grabbed the bread directly out of the oven.21 Another survivor described how the brigade “watched chimneys from a hill: when they saw smoke, they went to that house and took whatever was being cooked.”22 Yet another family received a parcel from a relative containing rice, sugar, millet and shoes. A few hours later a brigade arrived and took everything except the shoes.

At that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of “must” was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

We know that, if a third or a fourth part of the fabulous sums expended on extermination and destruction had been devoted to works of peace, all the iniquities that poison the air we breathe would have been triumphantly redressed and that the social question, the one great question, that matter of life and death which justice demands that posterity should face, would have found its definite solution, once and for all, in a happiness which now perhaps even our sons and grandsons will not realize. We know that the disappearance of two or three million young existences, cut down when they were on the point of bearing fruit, will leave in history a void that will not be easily filled, even as we know that among those dead were mighty intellects, treasures of genius which will not come back again and which contained inventions and discoveries that will now perhaps be lost to us for centuries. We

Ta-da! Faerie!” Jack pointed at Reth, the very definition of beauty, leaning casually against the wall in a cream Victorian suit, the shirt open around his neck revealing perfectly sculpted collarbones, his golden hair just brushing along them. “Evelyn, love, there you are.” “I—You—and you?” I looked incredulously from Jack to Reth and back again. “This does not compute on so many levels.” Jack shrugged, shoving his hands sullenly in his pockets. “Reth found me, told me you were in trouble, so I agreed to help.” Reth cocked his head, giving Jack a curious look. “I seem to recall offering you the choice between having both yours hands removed or pulling Evelyn out of that abominable iron-lined prison.” Jack didn’t meet my eyes. “Like I said, I agreed to help.” I snorted. “Noble, as always.” Reth held out his elbow. “Are we quite ready to go? I, for one, would rather not spend much time here. Tasteless décor, and the lighting doesn’t do your complexion any favors, Evelyn.” “Oh, for the love, you two are not in charge! And I don’t trust either one of you for a stroll down the hall, much less through the Faerie Paths!” Reth fixed his eyes on mine. “You have my word that you will come to no harm while in my care.” He waved a hand at Jack. “And you have my word that if he does anything I find even so much as mildly annoying, he’ll never walk again.

Where is everybody?” “Hiding,” she said. “Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He’s napping now like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door.” “Give.” She shot me a sly smile. “First, I got to listen to Jim’s ‘it’s all my fault; I did it all by myself’ speech. Then I got to listen to Derek’s ‘it’s all my fault and I did it all by myself’ speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it.” I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat. “Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass.” That would do him in. “So what did he say?” “He didn’t say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he’d been irresponsible with Livie’s life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one’s toughness. Apparently he didn’t think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he’s not inclined to tolerate it now that she’s twenty-eight.” I was cracking up. “He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done.” Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. “Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire.” “He sentenced himself?” “He’s broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently.” That’s Beast Lord for you. “And Jim?” “Oh, he got a special chewing-out after everybody else was dismissed. It was a very quiet and angry conversation, and I didn’t hear most of it. I heard the end, though—he got three months of Keep building. Also, when he opened the door to leave, Curran told him very casually that if Jim wanted to pick fights with his future mate, he was welcome to do so, but he should keep in mind that Curran wouldn’t come and rescue him when you beat his ass. You should’ve seen Jim’s face.” “His what?” “His mate. M-A-T-E.” I cursed. Andrea grinned. “I thought that would make your day. And now you’re stuck with him in here for three days and you get to fight together in the Arena. It’s so romantic. Like a honeymoon.” Once again my mental conditioning came in handy. I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

The air was still; when a breath awoke, it but touched his cheek like the down of a feather, and the stillness was there again. The stillness grew great, and slowly descended upon him. It deepened and deepened. Surely it would deepen to a voice! -- it was about to speak! It was as if a great single thought was the substance of the silence, and was all over and around him, and closer to him than his clothes, than his body, than his hands. I am describing the indescribable, and compelled to make it too definite for belief. In colder speech, an experience had come to the child; a link in the chain of his development glided over the windlass of his uplifting; a change passed upon him. In after years, when Gibbie had the idea of God, when he had learned to think about him, to desire his presence, to believe that a will of love enveloped his will, as the brooding hen spreads her wings over her eggs -- as often as the thought of God came to him, it came in the shape of the silence on the top of Glashgar.

I found him in the kitchen, at the table in the bay window, already eating his cereal. “I was going to fix you breakfast,” I said. He grinned. “I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out.” “No one can pour cereal like I can. That’s true.” I crossed the kitchen. He scooted his chair back, and I sat on his lap and put my arms on his shoulders. “Good morning,” I said, right before I kissed him. Oh, yes, this was definitely the way to start the day. “We’re in the house,” he said when we stopped kissing. “Thought we had a rule about not kissing in the house.” “Yeah, we also had a house rule--no falling for the player living with us. You see how good I am at following rules.” He grinned. “Lucky for me. Why don’t you come to Ruby Tuesday for lunch?” “Okay.” “Then practice.” “Definitely.” “Maybe we could do something afterward.” “Absolutely.” He kissed me again. He tasted like bran flakes and raisins and bananas. Me, I tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough. It was an odd combination but it somehow worked.

Some time later he heard a scratching coming from the door. G shook his head, chalking the noise up to random castle creaks and groans, but then he heard it again. A distinct scratching sound. He raised the candle, which only had an inch of light left, and walked cautiously to the door, just in time to see two beady little eyes peeking underneath. He barely had time to register the eyes when an entire furry body snaked its way inside his chamber, flat against the ground. G yelped and stepped back. (He definitely did not scream like a little girl.)

Hallie didn't believe she was invulnerable. She was never one of those daredevil types; she knew she could get hurt. What I think she meant was that she was lucky to be on her way to Nicaragua. It was the slowest thing to sink into my head, how happy she was. Happy to be leaving. We'd had one time of perfect togetherness in our adult lives, the year when we were both in college in Tucson-her first year, my last-and living together for the first time away from Doc Homer. That winter I'd wanted to fail a subject just so I could hang back, stay there with her, the two of us walking around the drafty house in sweatshirts and wool socks and understanding each other precisely. Bringing each other cups of tea without having to ask. So I stayed on in Tucson for medical school, instead of going to Boston as I'd planned, and met Carlo in Parasitology. Hallie, around the same time, befriended some people who ran a safehouse for Central American refugees. After that we'd have strangers in our kitchen every time of night, kids scared senseless, people with all kinds of damage. Our life was never again idyllic. I should have seen it coming. Once she and I had gone to see a documentary on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was these Americans who volunteered without our government's blessing to fight against Franco and Hitler in the Spanish Civil War. At that point in U.S. history fascism was only maybe wrong, whereas communism was definitely. When we came home from the movie Hallie cried. Not because of the people who gave up life and limb only to lose Spain to Franco, and not for the ones who came back and were harassed for the rest of their lives for being Reds. The tragedy for Hallie was that there might never be a cause worth risking everything for in our lifetime. She was nineteen years old then, and as she lay blowing her nose and sobbing on my bed she told me this. That there were no real causes left. Now she had one-she was off to Nicaragua, a revolution of co-op farms and literacy crusades-and so I guess she was lucky. Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain. Almost no one really gets the chance to alter the course of human events on purpose, in the exact way they wish for it to be altered.

What I’ve learned from these long voyages of ours is that, in the end, we all strive for our own good. It does not matter what race we are, who we are… We have that one thing in common – the wish to live this life the best way possible. Hence, our definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ always remain subjective – no matter how many perspectives we consider, no matter how objective we try to be, we still judge according to our own beliefs, principles, and opinions – things that we develop throughout our entire life. In truth, nothing is either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but is both good and bad, all at the same time, depending on the perspective and the relation with other matters. This world is much more versatile than we thought it was. The only universal truth is the energy of life and love – the unending circle, and the undying emotion – interconnected for eternity. Life bears love, and love bears life. Hence, I believe that whatever era may come, major concepts shall never change. We should pave our way and live to our content, staying harmonious with ourselves, because in the end, we shall never know what is right and what is wrong. We interrelate just like the tiniest substances – molecules, atoms, etc. – and the biggest substances – planets, galaxies, universes… During these interrelations, there shall be unions as well as collisions, destructions as well as creations… As long as we live, there shall be both oppositions and friendships. There shall be peace, there shall be war, and then peace again. This shall not change. Hope will motivate us, mind shall guide us, love shall rejoice us, death shall sadden us, but life will go on. Life is always moving and ardent, never to stop or pause. This is the only universal truth that exists in this world – the energy of ardour and life.

A flash of lightning ghosts into the room, and when it leaves again, my eyes follow it back out to sea. In the window's reflection, I glimpse a figure standing behind me. I don't need to turn around to see who creates such a big outline-or who makes my whole body turn into a goose-bump farm. "How do you feel?" he says. "Better," I say to his reflection. He hops over the back of the couch and grabs my chin, turning my head side to side, up and down, all around, watching for my reaction. "I just did that," I tell him. "Nothing." He nods and unhands me. "Rach-Uh, my mom called your mom and told her what happened. I guess your mom called your doctor, and he said it's pretty common, but that you should rest a few more days. My mom insisted you stay the night since no one needs to be driving in this weather." "And my mother agreed to that?" Even in the dark, I don't miss his little grin. "My mom can be pretty persuasive," he says. "By the end of the conversation, your mom even suggested we both stay home from school tomorrow and hang out here so you can relax-since my mom will be home supervising, of course. Your mom said you wouldn't stay home if I went to school." A flash from the storm illuminates my blush. "Because we told her we're dating." He nods. "She said you should have stayed home today, but you threw a fit to go anyway. Honestly, I didn't realize you were so obsessed-ouch!" I try to pinch him again, but he catches my wrist and pulls me over his lap like a child getting a spanking. "I was going to say, 'with history.'" He laughs. "No you weren't. Let me up." "I will." He laughs. "Galen, you let me up right now-" "Sorry, not ready yet." I gasp. "Oh, no! The room is spinning again." I hold still, tense up. Then the room does spin when he snatches me up and grabs my chin again. The look of concern etched on his face makes me feel a little guilty, but not guilty enough to keep my mouth shut. "Works every time," I tell him, giving my best ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. A snicker from the entryway cuts off what I can tell is about to be a good scolding. I've never heard Galen curse, but his glower just looks like a four-letter word waiting to come out. We both turn to see Toraf watching us with crossed arms. He is also wearing a ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. "Dinner's ready, children," he says. Yep, I definitely like Toraf. Galen rolls his eyes and extracts me from his lap. He hops up and leaves me there, and in the reflection, I see him ram his fist into Toraf's gut as he passes. Toraf grunts, but the smirk never leaves his face. He nods his head for me to follow them. As we pass through the rooms, I try to remember the rich, sophisticated atmosphere, the marble floors, the hideous paintings, but my stomach makes sounds better suited to a dog kennel at feeding time. "I think your stomach is making mating calls," Toraf whispers to me as we enter the kitchen. My blush debuts the same time we enter the kitchen, and it's enough to make Toraf laugh out loud.

operations, trying to get things straight. He now had so much metal in his pelvis that he carried a TSA Notification Card just to get on an airplane. Despite the lingering disability, he’d gone back to full-time in April. He sat back down again. “I found Brett Givens working as a sign man for a real estate dealership over in Edina,” he said. “He drives a pickup, goes around putting up signs, or taking them down.” Lucas knew Givens: “Better than working at the chop shop.” “Yeah. Anyway, he says Cory is definitely back, because he saw him up in Cambridge last week, at Kenyon’s. He said Cory didn’t see him, because he ducked out—I think he was afraid that Cory might try to talk him into something. He likes the sign job.” “Givens didn’t know where Cory’s living?” “No. But he said there were random people in the bar who seemed to know Cory, like he might be a regular. He said Cory doesn’t look especially prosperous, so he might still have the safe. I thought I’d go up this afternoon, have a few beers.” “All right. Take care. Jenkins and Shrake are out of pocket. If you need backup, call me, and I’ll either come up or get Jon to send somebody.” Dale Cory was believed to be in possession of a safe that contained two million dollars in diamond jewelry, at wholesale prices, taken from a jewelry store in St. Paul

He hoped and feared,' continued Solon, in a low. mournful voice; 'but at times he was very miserable, because he did not think it possible that so much happiness was reserved for him as the love of this beautiful, innocent girl. At night, when he was in bed, and all the world was dreaming, he lay awake looking up at the old books against the walls, thinking how he could bring about the charming of her heart. One night, when he was thinking of this, he suddenly found himself in a beautiful country, where the light did not come from sun or moon or stars, but floated round and over and in everything like the atmosphere. On all sides he heard mysterious melodies sung by strangely musical voices. None of the features of the landscape was definite; yet when he looked on the vague harmonies of colour that melted one into another before his sight he was filled with a sense of inexplicable beauty. On every side of him fluttered radiant bodies, which darted to and fro through the illuminated space. They were not birds, yet they flew like birds; and as each one crossed the path of his vision he felt a strange delight flash through his brain, and straightaway an interior voice seemed to sing beneath the vaulted dome of his temples a verse containing some beautiful thought. Little fairies were all this time dancing and fluttering around him, perching on his head, on his shoulders, or balancing themselves on his fingertips. 'Where am I?' he asked. 'Ah, Solon?' he heard them whisper, in tones that sounded like the distant tinkling of silver bells, "this land is nameless; but those who tread its soil, and breathe its air, and gaze on its floating sparks of light, are poets forevermore.' Having said this, they vanished, and with them the beautiful indefinite land, and the flashing lights, and the illumined air; and the hunchback found himself again in bed, with the moonlight quivering on the floor, and the dusty books on their shelves, grim and mouldy as ever.' ("The Wondersmith")

This is the definition of peace. The definition is interrupted by Toraf's ringtone. Why did Rachel get Toraf a phone? Does she hate me? Fumbling behind him in the sand, Galen puts a hand on it right before it stops ringing. He waits five seconds and...Yep, he's calling again. "Hello?" he whispers. "Galen, it's Toraf." Galen snorts. "You think?" "Rayna's ready to leave. Where are you?" Galen sighs. “We’re on the beach. Emma’s still sleeping. We’ll walk back in a few minutes.” Emma braved her mom’s wrath by skipping curfew again last night to be with him. Grom’s mating ceremony is tomorrow, and Galen and Rayna’s attendance is required. He’ll have to leave her in Toraf’s care until he gets back. “Sorry, Highness. I told you, Rayna’s ready to go. You have about two minutes of privacy. She’s heading your way. “The phone disconnects. Galen leans down and sweeps his lips over her sweet neck. “Emma,” he whispers. She sighs. “I heard him,” she groans drowsily. “You should tell Toraf that he doesn’t have to yell into the phone. And if he keeps doing it, I’m going to accidentally break it.” Galen grins. “He’ll get the hang of it soon. He’s not a complete idiot.” At this, Emma opens one eye. He shrugs. “Well, three quarters maybe. But not a complete one.” “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” she says, sitting up and stretching. “You know I do. But I think this mating ceremony will be interesting enough without introducing my Half-Breed girlfriend, don’t you think?” Emma laughs and pulls her hair to one side, draping it over her shoulder. “This is our first time away from each other. You know, as a couple. We’ve only been really dating for two weeks now. What will I do without you?” He pulls her to him, leaning her back against his chest. “Well, I’m hoping that this time when I come back, it won’t be to the sight of you kissing Toraf.” The snickers beside them let them know their two minutes of privacy are up. “Yeah. Or someone’s gonna die,” Rayna says cordially. Galen helps Emma up and swats the leftover sand out of her sundress. He takes her hands into his. “Could I please just ask one thing without you getting all mad about it?” She scowls. “Let me guess. You don’t want me to get in the water while you’re gone.” “But I’m not ordering you to stay out of it. I’m asking, no begging, very politely, and with all my heart for you not to get in. It’s your choice. But it would make me the happiest man-fish on the coast if you wouldn’t.” They sense the stalker almost daily now. That and the fact that Dr. Milligan blew his theory about Emma’s dad being a Half-Breed out of the water makes Galen more nervous than he can say. It means they still don’t have any answers about who could know about Emma. Or why they keep hanging around. Emma rewards him with a breathtaking smile. “I won’t. Because you asked.” Toraf was right. I just had to ask. He shakes his head. “Now I can sleep tonight.” “That makes one of us. Don’t stay gone too long. Or Mark will sit by me at lunch.” He grimaces. “I’ll hurry.” He leans down to kiss her. Behind them, he hears Rayna’s initial splash. “She’s leaving without you,” Emma whispers on his lips. “She could have left hours ago and I’d still catch her. Good-bye, angelfish. Be good.” He places a forceful kiss on her forehead, then gets a running start and dives in. And he misses her already.

Their gazes locked,he said,"I made a mistake." "Confusing your wife with a goat?" What was that he had thought about the difficulty of having a wife who was a truthsayer? He took a breath,let it out slowly, and sent with it a prayer. "There was a time-a brief time-when I considered you might be guilty." Truth. Rycca smiled. She freed her hands, cupped them to his face,and rose on her toes to touch her mouth to his. "What is that for?" he asked, caught between relief and bewilderment. Likely she would always keep him so off balance and likely he would always be glad of it for truly fortune smiled upon him. A great knot seemed to be untangling in his chest. "For believing me." "I only briefly didn't," he repeated. "No,I mean for believing I am a truthsayer." "And you know that because-" She laughed and took his hand again. "Because you are a wise and canny man, Lord Dragon. You could as easily have insisted you never even flirted with the thought that I might be guilty and thereby saved yourself what must surely have been an uneasy moment for a husband." He was slightly stung but not too much, for her ready forgiveness was as a balm over all else. "Generally speaking, I do tell the truth for its own sake." "I never thought otherwise. And I would be as truthful with you. Last night, I realized suddenly that I was not afraid. All things considered, that was rather ridiculous but it was how I felt nonetheless." The knot was definitely gone. Indeed, a great warmth seemd to suffuse him. If a woman who had every reason to fear Vikings could be tied to a punishment post by her own Viking husband and not be afraid, that could mean only one thing. "You trust me." "And you trust me." At that moment, looking down at her, his face held nothing of the mighty warrior and jarl. He looked instead like a boy handed the world. She wanted only to give it to him again and again. "I would say," Rycca murmured, "that for a rocky beginning, we are managing well enough." It was an incongruously happy note upon which to discuss a dead man.

Dr. Mark Crisplin, a Portland, Oregon, ER doctor, reviewed the original EEG readings of a number of patients claimed by the scientists as being flatlined or “dead” and discovered that this was not at all the case. “What they showed was slowing, attenuation, and other changes, but only a minority of patients had a flat line, and it [dying] took longer than 10 seconds. The curious thing was that even a little blood flow in some patients was enough to keep EEGs normal.” In fact, most cardiac patients were given CPR, which by definition delivers some oxygen to the brain (that’s the whole point of doing it). Crisplin concluded: “By the definitions presented in the Lancet paper, nobody experienced clinical death. No doctor would ever declare a patient in the middle of a code 99 dead, much less brain dead. Having your heart stop for 2 to 10 minutes and being promptly resuscitated doesn’t make you ‘clinically dead.’ It only means your heart isn’t beating and you may not be conscious.”31 Again, since our normal experience is of stimuli coming into the brain from the outside, when one part of the brain abnormally generates these illusions, another part of the brain—quite possibly the left-hemisphere interpreter described by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga—interprets them as external events. Hence, the abnormal is interpreted as supernormal or paranormal.

Jay came over as soon as Violet called him; she didn’t even have to give him a reason. He was there in less than ten minutes. Of course, he’d heard about what had happened to Hailey. Everyone had. Buckley was a small town, and news traveled fast . . . especially bad news. When he got there she told him what she was thinking about doing. It was nothing dangerous, at least as far as she was concerned, and she hadn’t expected Jay to disagree with her about it. So when he did, she was more than a little bit surprised by his stubborn reaction. “No way,” he insisted, and his voice left little room for argument. “There is no way you’re going to go around looking for this guy.” Violet was shocked by the tone of his voice, and by the harsh look he shot at her. She thought maybe he misunderstood her plan, so she tried to explain it to him again. “Jay, I’m only going to public places, like malls and parks, to see if I can get a feeling for who this guy is. Who knows, maybe he goes to places like that to find them, maybe he hands out there waiting to pick out a girl to . . . you know, kidnap.” She tried to make her argument sound logical, but there was a desperate edge to her voice. “I’m not going out alone . . . you can go with me. We’ll just hang out at different places to see if we can find him. And if we do, we’ll call my uncle. It’s not like we’d do anything stupid.” “’Anything stupid’ would be going out to look for a killer. I won’t let you go looking for trouble, Violet. This guy is dangerous, and you need to leave it to the cops. They know what they’re doing. And they’re armed.” He sounded like he thought she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had, but she had already made her decision. “Look, I’m doing this. I was just asking you to come along with me.” “You’re not,” he insisted. “Even if I have to tell your uncle and your parents what you’re planning. I promise you, you’re not doing it.” She could feel her temper flaring. “You can’t stop me, Jay. If you tell on me, then I’ll lie. I’ll bat my eyes innocently and promise not to go looking for this guy. But I swear to you that every chance I get, even if I have to sneak out of the house to do it, I will be trying to find him.” She stood up, meaning to glare back at him, but instead found herself craning her neck just so she could see his face. The awkward position didn’t steal nay of her thunder. She refused to back down. “I mean it, Jay. You can’t stop me.” Jay glared incredulously back at her. Emotions ranging from disbelief to frustration and back to disbelief again flashed darkly across his face. He seemed to be fighting with himself now. But when she heard him sigh, and then saw him raking his hand restlessly through his hair, she knew she’d won. His icy determination seemed to melt right before her eyes. “Damn it, Violet.” He sighed brusquely, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. “What choice do I have?” he asked as he practically squeezed the life out of her. She wasn’t sure how to react to him now. It definitely wasn’t a tender hug, but the close contact made her undisclosed desires stir all the same. She couldn’t help wondering if he felt even a fraction of what she did. His arms were strong, and she felt safe in the circle of them. She’d never imaged that she could feel so comfortable and so uncomfortable at the same time. She waited within the space of his embrace to see where this was going. “So, how is this going to work?” he demanded roughly against the top of her head.

The beautiful clarity of all marked outlines occurred to her--there would be a deep satisfaction in strengthening fences, for instance, going along on the inside of a strong fence enclosing a large land, leaning outward to push towards the extreme limit of property; too, what about the lovely definition of a sheet of white paper alone on her desk, oblong and complete, the tightness with which the sky fitted onto the earth at the horizon, the act of caressing the spine of a book? Irresistibly, she thought with a shiver of a razor sharp edge slicing horizontally through her eyes, into her mouth, and then coming around the hard corner of a building, saw again the campus and its lights and heard its sounds.

That was the moment Anna felt something inside her trip and fall, something come clean away from all the snares and traps and tangles of the propriety in which she’d been steeped all these years. And as he began to move, she pressed into him as he had shown her, looked up at him from beneath her lashes as he’d directed, and said, in a purring voice, “My, my, sir, how well you move us about the dance floor! One can’t help but wonder if you move as well in other, more intimate circumstances,” she said, and let her lips stretch into a soft smile. It worked. Grif’s grin faded; he slowed his step a little and blinked down at her for a moment. But that dangerous smile slowly appeared again, starting in his eyes and casually reaching his lips. “If ye were to pose such a question to me, lass, I’d say, ‘As fast or as slow, as soft or as hard as ye’d want, leannan. Pray tell, how would ye want?’” The tingling in her groin was a signal that she was on perilous ground. Anna looked into his green eyes, so dark and so deep that she couldn’t quite determine if this was a game they were playing or something far more dangerous. And her good sense, shaped and controlled from years of living among high society, quietly shut down, allowing the real Anna, the Anna who yearned to be loved, to be held and caressed and adored and know all manner of physical pleasure, to slide deeper into the circle of his arms. “I don’t rightly know how I’d want, sir, other than to say…” Her voice trailed away as she let her gaze roam his face, the perfectly tied neckcloth, the breadth of his shoulders, his thick arms. And then she lifted her gaze to his, saw something smoldering there, and recklessly whispered, “… that I’d most definitely want.” He said nothing. The muscles in his jaw bulged as if he refrained from speaking, and she realized that they had come to a halt. But then his hand spread beneath hers, his palm pressed to her palm, and he laced his fingers between hers, one by one, and with the last one, he closed his hand, gripping hers tightly. “Tha sin glè mhath,” he whispered hoarsely. Anna smiled, lifted a curious brow. “I said, that’s very good, lass. Very good indeed

Livia decided she loved watching things go into him. Food, water, love—all these things she could give him. “You look tired. Would you like to nap?” he asked. Blake was definitely back. There was less rasp and more smoke in his silky voice. “No, Blake. I never want to sleep again. Just this.” Livia touched his face. “Only this.” The pride in his eyes almost changed their color. He turned his face to her palm, kissed it, and said, “Come, my love, put your head on my shoulder. Your burdens have been heavy.” In that moment, Livia realized her eyelids were drooping, and the crook of Blake’s arm seemed perfect for her head. His lips stayed on her forehead as he hummed a serene song. Livia fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Rach-Uh, my mom says they'll help me blend in better. She says the color would just draw attention to me." Emma snorts. "Oh, she's definitely right. Blue eyes make you look so much more average. In fact, I almost didn't notice you standing there." "That hurts my feelings, Emma." He grins. She giggles. He says, "I'd consider forgiving you-if you come with me to the beach." She sighs. "I can't go with you, Galen." He runs a hand through his hair. "Honestly, Emma, I don't know how much more rejection I can take," he blurts out. In fact, he doesn't remember ever being rejected, except by Emma. Of course, that could be due to the fact that he's a Royal. Or maybe it's because he doesn't spend a lot of time with his kind anyway, let alone the females. Actually, he doesn't spend a lot of time with anyone except Rachel. And Rachel would give him her beating heart if he asked for it. "I'm sorry. It's not about you this time. Well, actually, it kind of is. My mom...well, she thinks we're dating." Her cheeks-and those lips-deepen to red. "Dating?" What is dating again? He tries to remember what Rachel told him...She said it's easy to remember because it's almost the same as...what is the rhyme for it? And then he remembers. "It's easy to remember, because dating rhymes with mating, and they're almost the same," she'd said. He blinks at Emma. "You're mom thinks we're ma-Uh, dating?" She nods biting her lip. For reasons he can't explain, this pleases him. He leans against the passenger door of her car. "Oh. Well. What does it matter if she thinks that?" "I told her we weren't dating, though. Just this morning. Going to the beach with you makes me look like a liar." He scratches the back of his neck. "I don't understand. If you told her we weren't dating, then why does she think we are?" She relaxes against his driver-side door. "Well, this is all actually your fault, not mine." "I'm obviously not asking the right questions-" "The way you acted toward me when I hit my head, Galen. Some people saw that. And they told my mom. She thinks I've been hiding you from her, keeping you a secret. Because she thinks we've been...we've been..." "Dating?" he offers. He can't understand why she'd have a difficult time discussing dating, if it means what he thinks it does-spending time with one human more than others to see if he or she would be a good mate. The Syrena do the same, only they call it sifting-and sifting doesn't take nearly as long as dating. A Syrena can sift out a mate within a few days. He'd laughed when Rachel said some humans date for years. So indecisive. Then an echo of Toraf's voice whispers to him, calling him a hypocrite. You're twenty years old. Why haven't you sifted for a mate? But that doesn't make him indecisive. He just hasn't had time to sift and keep his responsibility watching the humans. If it weren't for that, he'd already be settled down. How can Toraf think Emma's the reason he hasn't sifted yet? Up until three weeks ago, he didn't even know she existed.

She sorted through the clothes. “Do you mind wearing Emilio’s underwear?” She turned back to him with the two different styles that she’d found. “You’re about the same size. And they’re clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service.” Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she’d pilfered from Emilio, she’d also borrowed one of his thongs. “What?” Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts. “Don’t be ridiculous.” “I’m not,” she said, trying to play it as serious. “One, it’s been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and—” He took the boxers from her. “Apparently I was wrong.” She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she’d grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn’t fall over. Right. After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . . Okay, he definitely wasn’t as skinny as he’d been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio’s pants probably weren’t going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they’d be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts. Max gave her another one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glances as he put the bathrobe over the back of another chair. “Do I really look as if I’ve ever worn shorts that color in my entire life?” She tried not to smile. “I honestly don’t think you have much choice.” She let herself look at him. “You know, you could just go with the boxers. At least until your pants dry. You know what would really work with that, though? A bowtie.” She turned, as if to go back to the closet. “I’m sure Emilio has a tux. Judging from his other clothes, it’s probably polyester and chartreuse, but maybe the bowtie is—” “Gina.” Max stopped her before she reached the door. He motioned for her to come back. She held out the green shorts, but instead of taking them, he took her arm, pulled her close. “I love you,” Max said, as if he were dispatching some terrible, dire news that somehow still managed to amuse him at least a little. Gina had been hoping that he’d say it, praying even, but the fact that he’d managed to smile, even just a bit while he did, was a miracle. And then, before her heart even had a chance to start beating again, he kissed her. And oh, she was also beyond ready for that particular marvel, for the sweet softness of his mouth, for the solidness of his arms around her. There was more of him to hold her since he’d regained his fighting weight—and that was amazing, too. She skimmed her hands across the muscular smoothness of his back, his shoulders, as his kiss changed from tender to heated. And, God. That was a miracle, too. Except she couldn’t help but wonder about those words, wrenched from him, as if it cost him his soul to speak them aloud. Why tell her this right now? Yes, she’d been waiting for years for him to say that he loved her, but . . . Max laughed his surprise. “No. Why do you . . .?” He figured it out himself. “No, no, Gina, just . . . I should’ve said it before. I should have said it years ago, but I really should have said it, you know, instead of hi.” He laughed again, clearly disgusted with himself. “God, I’m an idiot. I mean, hi? I should have walked in and said, ‘Gina, I need you. I love you, don’t ever leave me again.’” She stared at him. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t said that at the time, because she might’ve fainted. It was obvious that he wanted her to say something, but she was completely speechless.

Do you have a piece of paper I could write on?” I jump up too fast. “Sure. Just one? Do you—of course you need something to write with. Sorry. Here.” I grab him a paper from my deskdrawer and one of my myriad pencils, and he uses the first Children of Hypnos book as a flat surface to write on. When I’m sure he’s writing something for me to read right now, I say, “I thought you only needed to do that when other people were around?” He etches one careful line after the next. He frowns, shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s . . . tough to say things. Certain things.” His voice is hardly a whisper. I sit down beside him again, but his big hand blocks my view of the words. He stops writing, leaves the paper there, and stares. Then he hands it to me and looks the other direction. Can I kiss you? “Um,” is a delightfully complex word. “Um” means “I want to say something but don’t know what it is,” and also “You have caught me off guard,” and also “Am I dreaming right now? Someone please slap me.” I say “um,” then. Wallace’s entire head-neck region is already flushed with color, but the “um” darkens it a few shades, and goddammit, he was nervous about asking me and I made it worse. What good is “um” when I should say “YES PLEASE NOW”? Except there’s no way I’m going to say “YES PLEASE NOW” because I feel like my body is one big wired time bomb of organs and if Wallace so much as brushes my hand, I’m going to jump out of my own skin and run screaming from the house. I’ll like it too much. Out of control. No good. I say, “Can I borrow that pencil?” He hands me the pencil, again without looking. Yes, but not right now. I know it sounds weird. Sorry. I don’t think it’ll go well if I know it’s coming. I will definitely freak out and punch you in the face or scream bloody murder or something like that. Surprising me with it would probably work better. I am giving you permission to surprise me with a kiss. This is a formal invitation for surprise kisses. I don’t like writing the word “kiss.” It makes my skin crawl. Sorry. It’s weird. I’m weird. Sorry. I hope that doesn’t make you regret asking. I hand the paper and pencil back. He reads it over, then writes: No regret. I can do surprises. That’s it. That’s it? Shit. Now he’s going to try to surprise me with a kiss. At some point. Later today? Tomorrow? A week from now? What if he never does it and I spend the rest of the time we hang out wondering if he will? What have I done? This was a terrible idea. I’m going to vomit. “Be right back,” I say, and run to the bathroom to curl up on the floor. Just for like five minutes. Then I go back to my room and sit down beside Wallace. As I’m moving myself into position, his hand falls over mine, and I don’t actually jump out of my skin. My control shakes for a moment, but I turn in to it, and everything smooths out. I flip my hand over. He flexes his fingers so I can fit mine in the spaces between. And we sit there, shoulder to shoulder, with our hands resting on the bed between us. It’s not so bad

Crimson silk sheets. I’m in her and she’s looking at me like I’m her world. The woman undoes me. I flinch. I’m having sex with me, seeing myself from his eyes. I look incredible naked—is that how he sees me? He doesn’t see any of my flaws. I’ve never looked half as good to myself. I want to pull out. It feels perverse. I’m fascinated. But this was not what I was hunting for at all . . . Where are the handcuffs? Ah, grab her fucking head, she’s going down on me again. She’ll make me come. Tie her up. Is she back? How much longer do I have? He senses me there. Get out of my HEAD! I deepen the kiss, bite his tongue, and he is violent with lust. I take advantage, diving deep. There’s a thought he’s shielding. I want it. Nobody home but She for Whom I am the World. Can’t go on like this, can’t keep doing it. Why couldn’t he go on? What couldn’t he keep doing? I’m having sex with him, any way he wants me, while I stare up at him with utter worship. Where was the problem there? Weariness suddenly crashes over me. I’m in his body, and I’m coming beneath him, and I’m checking my eyes warily. What the fuck am I doing here? He knew what he was, what I was. He knew we came from different worlds, didn’t belong together. Yet for a few months there’d been no lines of demarcation between us. We’d existed in a place beyond definitions, where no rules had mattered, and I wasn’t the only one who’d reveled in it. But the entire time I’d been lost in sexual bliss, he’d been aware of time passing, of everything that was happening—that I was mindless, I wasn’t willing, and when I snapped out of it I’d blame him. Keep hoping to see the light in her eyes. Even knowing it’ll mean she’s saying good-bye. I had. Irrational or not, I’d held it against him. He’d seen me naked, body and soul, and I hadn’t seen him at all. I’d been blinded by helpless lust that hadn’t been for him. I had been lust, and he’d been there. Just one time, he’s thinking as we watch my glazed eyes go even emptier. One time, what? Instead of pushing, I try a stealth attack. I pretend to retreat, let him think he’s won, and at the last minute turn around. Instead of lunging for his thoughts, I stay very, very still and listen. He pushes my hair out of my face. I look like an animal. There’s no sentience in my gaze. I’m a cavewoman, with a miniscule, pre-historic brain. When you know who I am. Let me be your man.

You can’t be in here.” Ian stated it as a fact. Sam sank back onto the bed. He was definitely growing stronger, but standing could be troublesome on shaky legs. The pain of his wound had definitely receded. “Why not?” he asked a little belligerently. “She can’t; it’s impossible. I was standing guard at her door.” Ian’s gaze met Azami’s. “To protect you of course.” “Of course, because there are so many enemies creeping around your halls,” Azami said, her voice soft and pleasant, a musical quality lending innocence and sweetness. Ian’s frown deepened as if he was puzzled. She certainly couldn’t have meant that the way it came out, anyone listening would be certain of it. “Just what are you two doing in here anyway?” he asked, suspicion lending his tone a dark melodrama. He even wiggled his eyebrows like a villain. Sam kept a straight face with difficulty. Ian was a large man with red hair and freckles. He didn’t look in the least bit mean or threatening, even when he tried. “Azami was just telling me how when she left her room to inquire after my health, there was a giant man with carroty hair snoring in the hallway beside her door.” “There was no way to get past me,” Ian insisted. Sam grinned at him. “Are you saying you did fall asleep on the job, then?” “Hell no.” Ian scowled at him. “I was wide awake and she didn’t slap past me.” “You say,” Sam pointed out, his tone mocking as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back casually, pleased he could tease his friend. “Still, she’s here and that proves you were looking the other way or sleeping, just like that time in Indonesia when we parachuted in and you fell asleep on the way down. I believe that time you got tangled in a very large tree right in the center of the enemies’ camp.” Azami’s lashes fluttered, drawing Sam’s attention. He almost reached out to her, wanting to hold her hand, but she’d mentioned a couple of times she didn’t show affection in public. “You fell asleep while parachuting?” she asked, clearly uncertain whether or not they were joking. Ian shook his head. “I did not. A gust of heavy wind came along and pushed me right into that tree. Gator told everyone I was snoring when he shoved me out of the plane. The entire episode is all vicious fabrication. On the other hand, Sam here, actually did fall asleep while he was driving as we were escaping a very angry drug lord in Brazil.” Azami raised her eyebrow as she turned to Sam for an explanation. Her eyes laughed at him and again he had a wild urge to pull her to him and hold her tight. Primitive urges had never been a part of his makeup until she’d come along; now he figured he was becoming a caveman. Her gaze slid to his face as if she knew what he was thinking—which was probably the case. He flashed a grin at her.

But all the pressures go the other way, towards learning only what is immediately useful, what is functional. More and more the demand is for people to be educated to function in an almost certainly temporary stage of technology. Educated for the short term. We have to look at the word useful again. In the long run what is useful is what survives, revives, comes to life in different contexts, It may look now as if people educated to use our newest technologies efficiently are the world's elite, but in the long run I believe that people educated to have, as well, that point of view that used to be described as humanistic-- the long-term, over-all, contemplative point of view--will turn out to be more influential. Simply because they understand more of what is going on in the world .It is not that I undervalue the new technicians. On the contrary. It is only that what they know is by definition a temporary necessity.

And then, Jane looks August straight on, folds her arms across her chest, and says, “What the fuck, August?” August mentally flips through the plan for tonight—nope, definitely not part of it. “What?” “I can’t do this anymore,” Jane says. She paces toward August, sneakers thumping hard on the floor of the car. She’s pissed off. Brow furrowed, eyes vivid and angry. August scrambles to figure out how she screwed this up so fast. “You—you can’t do what?” “August,” she says, and she’s right in front of her. “Is this a date? Am I on a date right now?” Fuck. August leans against the door, equivocating. “Do you want it to be a date?” “No,” Jane says, “you tell me, because I have been putting every move I know on you for months and I can’t figure you out, and you kept saying you were only kissing me for research, and then you stopped kissing me, but then you kissed me again, and you’re standing there looking like that in fucking thigh highs and bringing me wine and making me feel things I didn’t even know I could remember how to feel, and I’m going out of my goddamn mind—” “Wait.” August holds both hands up. Jane’s breaths are coming high and short, and August suddenly feels close to hysterical. “You like me?” Jane’s hands clench into fists. “Are you kidding me?” “But I asked you on a date!” “When?” “That time I asked you out to drinks!” “That was a date?” “I—but—and you—all those other girls you told me about, you were always—you just went for it, I thought if you wanted me like that, you would have gone for it by now—” “Yeah,” Jane says flatly, “but none of those girls were you.” August stares. “What do you mean?” “Jesus, August, what do you think I mean?” Jane says, voice cracking, arms thrown out at her sides. “None of them were you. Not a single one of them was this girl who dropped out of the fucking future to save me with her ridiculous hair and her pretty hands and her big, sexy brain, okay, is that what you want me to say? Because it’s the truth. Everything else about my life is fucked, so, can you—can you please just tell me, am I on a fucking date right now?” She makes a helpless gesture, and August is breathless at the pure frustration in it, the way it looks so broken in, like Jane’s been living with it for months. And her hands are shaking. She’s nervous. August makes her nervous. It sinks in and rearranges in August’s brain—the borrowed kisses, the times Jane’s bit her lip or slid her hand across August’s waist or asked her to dance, all the ways she’s tried to say it without saying it. They’re both hopeless at saying it, August realizes. So August opens her mouth and says, “It was never just research.” “Of course it fucking wasn’t,” Jane says, and she hauls August in by the sway of her waist and finally, finally kisses her.

Two seconds went by before I got a response. Lenny: The offer stands, bish. Lenny: You’re the best person I know, fyi. I smiled down at my phone. Me: I love you too Lenny: [eye rolling emoji] Lenny: I was texting you because Grandpa G is making margaritas and he was asking where you were. Me: Tell him I love him. Lenny: I will. You find Rip? Me: I’m watching him. Lenny: Stalker Me: He’s standing in front of me, I can’t help it. Lenny: Pretty sure that’s what every stalker thinks. I chanced another glance at the man and held back a sigh. Me: Sometimes I don’t understand why him. Lenny: Because he looks like he’s been in jail and that’s about as far away from what every jackass you’ve ever dated looks like? Lenny: Grandpa G says he loves you too and to come over and bring the girl with you if she’s around. I didn’t tell him you’re at the bar, otherwise he’d want to invite himself. You know how that man gets in public. I almost laughed at the first comment and definitely laughed at the second one. Rip did look like he’d done time. That was unfair, but it was the truth. For all I knew, he probably had. Then again, I was probably judging him by a face he had no say in. For all I knew, he had a marshmallow heart and rescued and rehabilitated small animals when he wasn’t at work. Deep down, he might have a caring and loving disposition that he only shared around very few people—people who had won his trust. You never knew. The idea of that put a small smile on my face and kept it there as I typed a message back, leaving the first comment alone. Me: I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here, but if I leave soon, I’ll drop by. Tell Grandpa G that the girl is working tonight. You’re all coming for the graduation, right? Lenny: Yes. I’m legit ready to cry this Saturday. Lenny: I’ve got the blow horn ready by the way. TOOT TOOT, bish. She wasn’t the only one preparing herself to cry this weekend, and that made me happy for some reason.

She was too narcoleptic to speak. Or move. How long had this been going on? Was she like this yesterday? Had I missed her illness in my quest to prove to my brain that my dick wasn’t the one behind this train wreck’s wheel? I touched her forehead again. It sizzled. “Sweetheart.” “Please get out.” The words clawed past her throat. “Someone needs to take care of you.” “That someone definitely isn’t you. You made that clear these past couple days.” I said nothing. She was right. I hadn’t bothered to check on her. Perhaps I’d wished she’d check on me. In truth, she’d already gone beyond any expectations in trying to make whatever it was between us work. Meanwhile, I’d shut her down. Repeatedly. “Shortbread, let me get you some medicine and tea.” “I don’t want you to nurse me to health. Do you hear me?” She must have hated that I’d seen her like this. Weak and ill. “Call Momma and Frankie. It’s them I want by my side.” I swallowed but didn’t argue. I understood she didn’t want to feel humiliated. To be taken care of by the man who ensured she understood her insignificance to him. How did her bullshit meter not fry? How could she think I really felt nothing toward her? “First, I’ll get you medicine, tea, and water. Then I’ll call for Hettie to stay with you. Then I’ll notify your mother.” I tugged her comforter up to her chin. “No arguments.” She tried to wave me out, groaning at the slightest movement. “Whatever. Just go. I don’t want to see your face.” I gave her what she wanted, though as always, not in the way she expected. The sequence of actions didn’t proceed as promised. First, I contacted Cara to dispatch the private jet to Georgia. Then I called my mother-in-law and Franklin—separately—demanding their presence. Only then did I enter the kitchen to grab water, tea, and ibuprofen for Shortbread’s fever. Naturally, like the chronic idler he often proved to be, Oliver still sat at the island, now enjoying an extra-large slice of red velvet cake I was pretty sure was meant to be consumed by Dallas. “What are you still doing here?” I demanded, collecting the things I needed for her. He scratched his temple with the handle of his fork, brows pulled together. “You invited me here. You wanted to watch a soccer game, remember?” I did not remember. I didn’t even remember my own address right now. “Get out.” “What about the—” I snatched the plate from his fingers, admitting to myself that I’d treaded into feral grounds. “This cake wasn’t for you to eat.” “You’ve gone insane in the ten minutes you were gone.” Oliver gawked at me, wide-eyed. “What happened to you? Did Durban not get her hands on the latest Henry Plotkin book and take her anger out on you?” Shit. The Henry Plotkin book. I shoved Oliver out with a fork still clutched in his grimy fist, dialing Hettie with my free hand. She half-yawned, half-spoke. “Yes?” “Dallas is ill. You need to come here and take care of her until my in-laws arrive in about two hours.” “Oh, yeah?” Her energy returned tenfold. “And what the hell are you gonna do during this time?” “Freeze my balls off.”(Chapter 58)

It’s no secret that kids with ASD can be aggressive, and people never understand that it’s not because they’re violent. It’s almost always because they’re intensely frustrated or can’t communicate what they want, but nobody ever sees it that way, and their judgment toward Mason only gets worse the older he gets. People used to be so sweet and kind to us. Back then, he was cute as a button, and his huge, half-terrified blue eyes melted your heart even if he was kicking or throwing things at you. All you wanted to do was help him feel better. But now? All that’s different. I see the way everyone looks at him. How they clutch their purses next to themselves when he comes close, like violence and stealing go hand in hand. Nobody’s kind, and they’re definitely not helpful. They turn their noses up at him like they smell something funny when he starts smacking his hands together or repeating the same sentence over and over again. People purposefully cross to the other side of the street when they see us coming. It makes me so angry and heartsick.

Okay, so I shouldn't have fucked with her on the introduction thing. Writing nothing except, Saturday night. You and me. Driving lessons and hot sex ... in her notebook probably wasn't the smartest move. But I was itching to make Little Miss Perfecta stumble in her introduction of me. And stumbling she is. "Miss Ellis?" I watch in amusement as Perfection herself looks up at Peterson. Oh, she's good. This partner of mine knows how to hide her true emotions, something I recognize because I do it all the time. "Yes?" Brittany says, tilting her head and smiling like a beauty queen. I wonder if that smile has ever gotten her out of a speeding ticket. "It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class." I lean an elbow on the lab table, waiting for an introduction she has to either make up or fess up she knows less than crap about me. She glances at my comfortable position and I can tell from her deer-in-the-headlights look I've stumped her. "This is Alejandro Fuentes," she starts, her voice hitching the slightest bit. My temper flares at the mention of my given name, but I keep a cool facade as she continues with a made-up introduction. "When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what I mean. And he has a secret desire nobody would ever guess." The room suddenly becomes quiet. Even Peterson straightens to attention. Hell, even I'm listening like the words coming out of Brittany's lying, pink-frosted lips are gospel. "His secret desire," she continues, "is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you, Mrs. Peterson." Yeah, right. I look over at my friend Isa, who seems amused that a white girl isn't afraid of giving me smack in front of the entire class. Brittany flashes me a triumphant smile, thinking she's won this round. Guess again, gringa. I sit up in my chair while the class remains silent. "This is Brittany Ellis," I say, all eyes now focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes so she could expand her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets." It might not be what she wrote, but it's probably close enough to the truth. Unlike her introduction of me. Chuckles come from mis cuates in the back of the class, and Brittany is as stiff as a board beside me, as if my words hurt her precious ego. Brittany Ellis is used to people fawning all over her and she could use a little wake-up call. I'm actually doing her a favor. Little does she know I'm not finished with her intro. "Her secret desire," I add, getting the same reaction as she did during her introduction, "is to date a Mexicano before she graduates." As expected, my words are met by comments and low whistles from the back of the room. "Way to go, Fuentes," my friend Lucky barks out. "I'll date you, mamacita, " another says. I give a high five to another Latino Blood named Marcus sitting behind me just as I catch Isa shaking her head as if I did something wrong. What? I'm just having a little fun with a rich girl from the north side. Brittany's gaze shifts from Colin to me. I take one look at Colin and with my eyes tell him game on. Colin's face instantly turns bright red, resembling a chile pepper. I have definitely invaded his territory.

Dream House as Fantasy Fantasy is, I think, the defining cliché of female queerness. No wonder we joke about U-Hauls on the second date. To find desire, love, everyday joy without men’s accompanying bullshit is a pretty decent working definition of paradise. The literature of queer domestic abuse is lousy with references to this(27) punctured(28) dream(29), which proves to be as much a violation as a black eye, a sprained wrist. Even the enduring symbol of queerness—the rainbow—is a promise not to repeat an act of supreme violence by a capricious and rageful god: I won’t flood the whole world again. It was a one-time thing, I swear. Do you trust me? (And, later, a threat: the next time, motherfuckers, it’ll be fire.) Acknowledging the insufficiency of this idealism is nearly as painful as acknowledging that we’re the same as straight folks in this regard: we’re in the muck like everyone else. All of this fantasy is an act of supreme optimism, or, if you’re feeling less charitable, arrogance. Maybe this will change someday. Maybe, when queerness is so normal and accepted that finding it will feel less like entering paradise and more like the claiming of your own body: imperfect, but yours. --- 27. “I go to sleep at night in the arms of my lover dreaming of lesbian paradise. What a nightmare, then, to open my eyes to the reality of lesbian battering. It feels like a nightmare trying to talk about it, like a fog that tightens the chest and closes the throat…. We are so good at celebrating our love. It is so hard for us to hear that some lesbians live, not in paradise, but in a hell of fear and violence” (Lisa Shapiro, commentary in Off Our Backs, 1991). 28. “What will it do to our utopian dyke dreams to admit the existence of this violence?” (Amy Edgington, from an account of the first Lesbian Battering Conference held in Little Rock, AR, in 1988). 29. From a review of Behind the Curtains, a 1987 play about lesbian abuse: “By writing the play [and] by portraying both joy and pain in our lives, [Margaret Nash rejects the] almost reflex assumption that lesbians have surpassed the society from which we were born and, having come out, now exist in some mystical utopia” (Tracey MacDonald, Off Our Backs, 1987).

The Igbo people of Southern Nigeria are more than ten million strong and must be accounted one of the major peoples of Africa. Conventional practice would call them a tribe, but I no longer follow that convention. I call them a nation. "Here we go again!," you might be thinking. Well, let me explain. My Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines tribe as follows: "group of (esp. primitive) families or communities linked by social, religious or blood ties and usually having a common culture and dialect and a recognized leader." If we apply the different criteria of this definition to Igbo people we will come up with the following results: a. Igbo people are not primitive; if we were I would not be offering this distinguished lecture, or would I?; b. Igbo people are not linked by blood ties; although they may share many cultural traits; c. Igbo people do not speak one dialect; they speak one language which has scores of major and minor dialects; d. and as for having one recognized leader, Igbo people would regard the absence of such a recognized leader as the very defining principle of their social and political identity.

Take off your clothes. Better yet, I’ll do it.” “Oh, no!” She stepped back quickly in alarm, which prompted a swift frown from him. It vanished when Rycca said, “I saw how you manhandled that tunic. You aren’t about to do the same to this gown. Just wait a moment . . .” Even as she spoke, she deftly undid the laces down the side of the garment and lifted it carefully but quickly over her head. Her husband was in a mood, ridden by tension she could not understand. She wanted to placate him, yet she also wished to surrender to the urges he so effortlessly unleashed within her. Naked save for the gauzy chemise that hid nothing from his eyes, she stood before him, her head lifted proudly to conceal the quivering she felt within. She gloried in his gaze, hot and potent, raking over her. But when he reached for her, she stepped back again. “I ask a boon, lord.” She had never asked him for anything—save freedom and that he could not give. Caught, knowing he could hardly refuse, Dragon rasped, “What?” He had not meant to be so curt but speech was almost beyond him. He wanted her with a desperation he had never felt before save every time he lay with her, and even then he usually managed to maintain some semblance of control. Not now. He burned, his body drawn bow-taut. If he did not sheathe himself soon within his wife’s silken depths . . . She looked at him directly, her eyes wide and candid. “All day I have wanted to . . . touch you.” His dark brows rose. “All day?” Well, that was certainly pleasing but it didn’t make his condition any easier to bear. Harshly, he said, “You don’t have to ask permission to touch me.” She shrugged her lovely, almost bare shoulders. “I know, but under the circumstances . . .” Her gaze drifted down his body, rather pointedly, he thought. Which definitely did not help matters at all. “You can touch me later,” he said and reached for her again. She pressed her palms against his chest, tossed back her gleaming hair, and laughed. Really, he was going to die from this. “Just a little now . . . please?” Dragon squeezed his eyes shut and reached deep down inside himself for the control that was so intrinsic a part of his warrior’s nature. It had to be in there somewhere. Any moment now he’d stumble across it.

Will you never forgive me for what I did so long ago, Jane?” The soft question caught her off guard. “Would you do it again if you had the chance?” She could hardly breathe, awaiting his answer. With a low oath, he glanced away. Then his features hardened into those of the rigid and arrogant Dom he had become. “Yes. I did the only thing I could to keep you happy.” Her breath turned to ice in her throat. “That’s the problem. You still really believe that.” His gaze swung to her again, but before he could say anything more, noises in the hall arrested them both. “It’s gone very quiet in there.” It was the duke’s voice, remarkably clear, sounding as if it came from right outside the door. “Perhaps we should knock first.” Oh no! As Jane frantically set her gown to rights, she heard Lisette say, “Don’t you dare bother them, Max. I’m sure everything’s fine. Let’s come back later.” With panic growing in her belly, Jane glanced around for her tucker. Wordlessly, Dom plucked it from the back of a chair and handed it to her. Without meeting his gaze, she pinned it into her bodice, hoping to hide the tiny holes where Dom had unwittingly ripped it free of its pins. “Besides,” drawled Tristan, “it’s not as if Dom will seduce her or anything. That’s not his vice.” Sweet Lord, were they all right outside the door? “I’m not worried about that,” Max answered. “Miss Vernon isn’t the sort to let him seduce her.” As Jane tensed, Dom hissed under his breath, “Do the blasted idiots not realize we can hear them?” “Apparently not.” Dom furtively adjusted his trousers, which seemed to be rather…oddly protruding just now. Ohhh. Right. This was one time she wished Nancy hadn’t been so forthcoming about what happened to a man’s body when he was aroused. So that, not his pistol, had been the odd bulge digging into her. Definitely not a pistol. Her cheeks positively flamed. Faith, how could she even face his family after this and not give away what she and Dom had been doing? Mortified, she hurried to the looking glass to fix her hair. While she stuffed tendrils back into place and repinned drooping curls, Dom came up behind her to meet her gaze in the mirror. “Before we let them in, I want an answer to my question about Blakeborough.” Curse the stubborn man. How could she tell Dom she was so pathetic that she hadn’t even managed to find another man to love in all the years they’d spent apart? That she’d been foolish enough to wait around for Dom all this time, when he’d happily gone on living his life without her? Her pride couldn’t endure having him know that. To her relief, Tristan said, “Well, whatever they’re up to, we have to get moving.” A knock sounded at the door. “Dom? Jane? Are you done talking?” She met Dom’s gaze with a certain defiance, and he arched one eyebrow in question. So she took matters into her own hands and strode for the door. Caught off guard, Dom swore behind her and snatched up his greatcoat just as she opened the door and said, “Please come in. We’re quite finished.” In more ways than one. Their companions trooped in, casting her and Dom wary glances. Jane looked over to see Dom holding his greatcoat looped over his arm as if to shield the front of him. That brought the blushes back to her cheeks. She caught Lisette furtively watching her, and she cursed herself for wearing her emotions on her sleeve. Better shift her attention elsewhere before Lisette guessed just how shameless she’d been.

Alice's Cutie Code TM Version 2.1 - Colour Expansion Pack (aka Because this stuff won’t stop being confusing and my friends are mean edition) From Red to Green, with all the colours in between (wait, okay, that rhymes, but green to red makes more sense. Dang.) From Green to Red, with all the colours in between Friend Sampling Group: Fennie, Casey, Logan, Aisha and Jocelyn Green  Friends’ Reaction: Induces a minimum amount of warm and fuzzies. If you don’t say “aw”, you’re “dead inside”  My Reaction: Sort of agree with friends minus the “dead inside” but because that’s a really awful thing to say. Puppies are a good example. So is Walter Bishop. Green-Yellow  Friends’ Reaction: A noticeable step up from Green warm and fuzzies. Transitioning from cute to slightly attractive. Acceptable crush material. “Kissing.”  My Reaction: A good dance song. Inspirational nature photos. Stuff that makes me laugh. Pairing: Madison and Allen from splash Yellow  Friends’ Reaction: Something that makes you super happy but you don’t know why. “Really pretty, but not too pretty.” Acceptable dating material. People you’d want to “bang on sight.”  My Reaction: Love songs for sure! Cookies for some reason or a really good meal. Makes me feel like it’s possible to hold sunshine, I think. Character: Maxon from the selection series. Music: Carly Rae Jepsen Yellow-Orange  Friends’ Reaction: (When asked for non-sexual examples, no one had an answer. From an objective perspective, *pushes up glasses* this is the breaking point. Answers definitely skew toward romantic or sexual after this.)  My Reaction: Something that really gets me in my feels. Also art – oil paintings of landscapes in particular. (What is with me and scenery? Maybe I should take an art class) Character: Dean Winchester. Model: Liu Wren. Orange  Friends’ Reaction: “So pretty it makes you jealous. Or gay.”  “Definitely agree about the gay part. No homo, though. There’s just some really hot dudes out there.”(Feenie’s side-eye was so intense while the others were answering this part LOLOLOLOLOL.) A really good first date with someone you’d want to see again.  My Reaction: People I would consider very beautiful. A near-perfect season finale. I’ve also cried at this level, which was interesting. o Possible tie-in to romantic feels? Not sure yet. Orange-Red  Friends’ Reaction: “When lust and love collide.” “That Japanese saying ‘koi no yokan.’ It’s kind of like love at first sight but not really. You meet someone and you know you two have a future, like someday you’ll fall in love. Just not right now.” (<-- I like this answer best, yes.) “If I really, really like a girl and I’m interested in her as a person, guess. I’d be cool if she liked the same games as me so we could play together.”  My Reaction: Something that gives me chills or has that time-stopping factor. Lots of staring. An extremely well-decorated room. Singers who have really good voices and can hit and hold superb high notes, like Whitney Houston. Model: Jasmine Tooke. Paring: Abbie and Ichabod from Sleepy Hollow o Romantic thoughts? Someday my prince (or princess, because who am I kidding?) will come? Red (aka the most controversial code)  Friends’ Reaction: “Panty-dropping levels” (<-- wtf Casey???).  “Naked girls.” ”Ryan. And ripped dudes who like to cook topless.”  “K-pop and anime girls.” (<-- Dear. God. The whole table went silent after he said that. Jocelyn was SO UNCOMFORTABLE but tried to hide it OMG it was bad. Fennie literally tried to slap some sense into him.)  My Reaction: Uncontrollable staring. Urge to touch is strong, which I must fight because not everyone is cool with that. There may even be slack-jawed drooling involved. I think that’s what would happen. I’ve never seen or experienced anything that I would give Red to.

This is weird for me, too, you know. It’s like, ever since I got that letter…” He hesitates. “Forget it.” “Just say it,” I say. “Ever since I got that letter, things have been messed up between us. It’s not fair. You got to say everything you wanted to say, and I’m the one who has to rearrange the way I think about you; I have to make sense of it in my head. You totally blindsided me, and then you just shut me out. You start dating Kavinsky, you stop being my friend.” He exhales. “Ever since I got your letter…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. It definitely wasn’t that. “Josh…” “I know you don’t want to hear it, but just let me say what I need to say, okay?” I nod. “I hate that you’re with Kavinsky. I hate it. He’s not good enough for you. I’m sorry to say it, but he’s just not. In my opinion, no guy will ever be good enough for you. Least of all me.” Josh ducks his head, and then suddenly he looks up at me and says, “There was this one time, I guess it was a couple of summers ago. We were walking home from somebody’s house--I think it was Mike’s.” It was hot, around dusk. I was mad because Mike’s older brother Jimmy had said he’d give us a ride home, and then he went somewhere and didn’t come back, so we had to walk. I was wearing espadrilles and my feet were hurting something terrible. Josh kept telling me to keep up with him. Quietly he says, “It was just me and you. You had on that tan suede shirt you used to wear, with the straps, and it showed your belly button.” “My Pocahontas-meets-seventies-Cher-style shirt.” Oh, how I loved that shirt. “I almost kissed you that day. I thought about it. It was this weird impulse I had. I just wanted to see what it would be like.” My heart stops. “And then?” “And then I don’t know. I guess I forgot about it.” I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you got that letter. You were never supposed to see that. It wasn’t meant for you to ever read. It was just for me.” “Maybe it was fate. Maybe this was all supposed to happen just like this, because…because it was always gonna be you and me.” I say the first thing that comes to mind. “No, it wasn’t.” And I realize it’s true. This is the moment I realize I don’t love him, that I haven’t for a while. That maybe I never did. Because he’s right there for the taking: I could kiss him again; I could make him mine. But I don’t want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.

But how does it come about that while the ‘I think’ gives Kant a genuine phenomenal starting-point, he cannot exploit it ontologically, and has to fall back on the ‘subject’—that is to say, something *substantial*? The “I” is not just an ‘I think’, but an ‘I think something’. And does not Kant himself keep on stressing that the “I” remains related to its representations, and would be nothing without them? For Kant, however, these representations are the ‘empirical’, which is ‘accompanied’ by the “I”—the appearances to which the “I” ‘clings’. Kant nowhere shows the kind of Being of this ‘clinging’ and ‘accompanying’. At bottom, however, their kind of Being is understood as the constant Being-present-at-hand of the “I” along with its representations. Kant has indeed avoided cutting the “I” adrift from thinking; but he has done so without starting with the ‘I think’ itself in its full essential content as an ‘I think something’, and above all, without seeing what is ontologically ‘presupposed’ in taking the ‘I think something’ as a basic characteristic of the Self. For even the ‘I think something’ is not definite enough ontologically as a starting-point, because the ‘something’ remains indefinite. If by this “something” we understand an entity *within-the-world*, then it tacitly implies that the *world* has been presupposed; and this very phenomenon of the world co-determines the state of Being of the “I,” if indeed it is to be possible for the “I” to be something like an ‘I think something’. In saying “I,” I have in view the entity which in each case I am as an ‘I-am-in-a-world’. Kant did not see the phenomenon of the world, and was consistent enough to keep the ‘representations’ apart from the *a priori* content of the ‘I think’. But as a consequence the “I” was again forced back to an *isolated* subject, accompanying representations in a way which is ontologically quite indefinite. *In saying “I,” Dasein expresses itself as Being-in-the-world*. But does saying “I” in the everyday manner have *itself* in view *as* being-in-the-world [*in-der-Welt-seiend*]? Here we must make a distinction. When saying “I,” Dasein surely has in view the entity which, in every case, it is itself. The everyday interpretation of the Self, however, has a tendency to understand itself in terms of the ‘world’ with which it is concerned. When Dasein has itself in view ontically, it *fails to see* itself in relation to the kind of Being of that entity which it is itself. And this holds especially for the basic state of Dasein, Being-in-the-world." ―from_Being and Time_. Translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, pp. 367-370

Saying goodbye to everyone, I picked up my bag and began walking away as a deep husky voice called my name. I didn’t stop walking, but looked over my shoulder in time to see Brandon walking around the table toward me, and Chase holding the brunette’s head away from his as he watched us, she just continued onto his neck. Falling into step with me, he held out a hand, “We haven’t met yet, I’m Brandon Taylor.” Dear Lord that voice could warm me on the coldest day of the year. “Harper Jackson, nice to meet you.” He smiled as he held the door open for me, “You too. You seem to know the rest of the guys pretty well though we’re just meeting, they said you’re Bree’s roommate?” “Uh, yeah. I am, but I don’t really know them well. I’ve only talked to them for a total of about ten minutes before today.” “Really?” The corners of his mouth twitched up, “You seem to make quite an impression in a short amount of time then.” “Oh I definitely made an impression with them.” I muttered. He looked at me quizzically but I shook my head so he wouldn’t push it. We stopped walking when we got to the path that would take me to the dorms and him to his next class. I turned towards him and shamelessly took in his worn jeans resting low on his narrow hips and fitted black shirt before going back to his face. I hadn’t realized how tall he was when we were walking out, but he had to be at least a foot taller than me. His height and muscled body made me want to curl up in his arms, it looked like I’d fit perfectly there. I nervously bit my bottom lip while I watched his cloudy eyes slowly take in my small frame. It didn’t feel like the guys at the party, looking at me like I was something to eat. His eyes made me feel beautiful, and it thrilled me that they were on me. Thrilled me that they were on me? Get a grip Harper you just met him two seconds ago. “Come on PG, let’s go.” Chase grabbed my arm and started dragging me away. “Chase! Stop!” I yanked my arm out and shot him a dirty look. “What is your problem?” “I’m taking you and Bree to the house, and you need to pack for the weekend so let’s go.” He grabbed for me again but I dodged his hand. “The weekend, what?” “You’re staying with me, go pack.” I narrowed my eyes and started to turn towards Brandon, “Fine, hold on.” “Harper.” “Go away Chase, I’ll meet you in the room in a minute. Go find Bree.” He moved to stand closer behind me so I just sighed and gave Brandon a lame smile. “Sorry, apparently I have to go. I’ll see you tonight?” I don’t know why I asked, he actually lived there. A sexy smile lit up his face as his hand reached out to quickly brush against my arm, “See you then.” With a hard nod directed towards Chase, he turned and walked away.

Extract from 'Quixotic Ambitions': The crowd stared at Katy expectantly. She looked at them - old women in black, exhausted young women with pasty-faced children, youths in jeans and leather blousons chewing gum. She tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, she blurted out her short speech, thanking the people of Shkrapova for their welcome and promising that if she won the referendum she would work for the good of Maloslavia. There was some half-hearted applause and an old lady hobbled up to her, knelt down with difficulty, and kissed the hem of her skirt. She looked at Katy with tears rolling down her face and gabbled something excitedly. Dimitar translated: ‘She says that she remembers the reign of your grandfather and that God has sent you to Maloslavia.’ Katy was embarrassed but she smiled at the woman and helped her to her feet. At this moment the People’s Struggle Pioneers appeared on the scene, waving their banners and shouting ‘Doloy Manaheeyoo! Popnikov President!’ Police had been stationed at strategic points and quickly dispersed the demonstrators without any display of violence, but the angry cries of ‘Down with the monarchy!’ had a depressing effect on the entertainment that had been planned; only a few people remained to watch it. A group of children aged between ten and twelve ran into the square and performed a series of dances accompanied by an accordian. They stamped their feet and clapped their hands frequently and occasionally collided with one another when they forgot their next move. The girls wore embroidered blouses, stiffly pleated skirts and scarlet boots and the boys were in baggy linen shirts and trousers, the legs of which were bound with leather thongs. Their enthusiasm compensated for their mistakes and they were loudly applauded. The male voice choir which followed consisted of twelve young men who sang complicated polyphonic melodies with a high, curiously nasal tenor line accompanied by an unusually deep droning bass. Some of their songs were the cries of despair of a people who had suffered under Turkish occupation; others were lively dance tunes for feast days and festivals. They were definitely an acquired taste and Katy, who was beginning to feel hungry, longed for them to come to an end. At last, at two o’clock, the performance finished and trestle tables were set up in the square. Dishes of various salads, hors-d’oeuvres and oriental pastries appeared, along with casks of beer and bottles of the local red wine. The people who had disappeared during the brief demonstration came back and started piling food on to paper plates. A few of the People’s Struggle Pioneers also showed up again and mingled with the crowd, greedily eating anything that took their fancy.

Echad is first mentioned in the garden. It says a man and a woman, when they join together, become echad, or “one.” But that word echad is more explosive with meaning than just one flesh. It can literally mean to fuse together at the deepest part of our beings. Two becoming one, completely glued together, completely meshing. I still remember one of the hardest conversations I have had with Alyssa. We were just starting to date again, and were sitting in the car after a wonderful date night. We knew marriage was a possibility on the horizon, and I felt like I finally had to share things in my past that would affect her if we got married. I was incredibly nervous, as well as terrified of rejection or hurt, but I realized that if intimacy were to grow, I had to get vulnerable. For marriage to be what it truly is—two people becoming one in mind, body, soul, and spirit—I had to be honest. I remember sharing with her many things, but specifically some details of my sexual past. My teenage years were littered with me almost worshiping sexual fulfillment in pornography, partying, and girls. And I say worship, because that was where I got my worth, value, and purpose as well as what I most lived for (which is what the definition of worship is). I had to apologize and ask forgiveness from Alyssa for things I had done before I even knew her because of echad—one form of complete and utter intimacy. Because of that beauty, mystery, and power, God created it to function best in a man and a woman coming together for life and constantly echading or fusing together. I needed forgiveness because I had betrayed echad. I had betrayed oneness. I had betrayed intimacy. And if I wasn’t honest about it, it’d be a little part of my life or heart that Alyssa didn’t know—thus blocking echad. But something really peculiar happened in that moment. With the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, Alyssa forgave me. She heard all that I was and am, and still wanted to walk this journey with me. I still remember the tenderness in her voice as she spoke truth and forgiveness over me. In that moment I was exposed and known, and yet because of Alyssa’s grace, I was at the same time loved. And that is where intimacy is found—to be fully loved and to be fully known. To be fully loved, but not fully known will always allow us to buy the lie that “if they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t want me anymore.” And to be fully known but not fully loved feels sharp, painful, at a level of rejection that hurts so bad. But to be fully known and at the same time fully loved, now that is intimacy. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Intimacy is certainly romantic in some aspects, but at its deepest level, it’s much more than that. It can be experienced with friends and family, not just spouses and loved ones.

What did you say to them?” “Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.” “And they believed that?” “They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him…” Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs. “Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me and they’d taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn’t do it so well, Splinched myself again”--Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails; Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly--“and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we’d been…you’d gone.” “Gosh, what a gripping story,” Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound. “You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric’s Hollow and, let’s think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who’s snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second.” “What?” Ron said, gaping from her to Harry, but Hermione ignored him. “Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn’t it?” “Hermione,” said Harry quietly, “Ron just saved my life.” She appeared not to have heard him. “One thing I would like to know, though,” she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron’s head. “How exactly did you find us tonight? That’s important. Once we know, we’ll be able to make sure we’re not visited by anyone else we don’t want to see.” Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket. “This.” She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them. “The Deluminator?” she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce. “It doesn’t just turn the lights on and off,” said Ron. “I don’t know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I’ve been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard…I heard you.” He was looking at Hermione. “You heard me on the radio?” she asked incredulously. “No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice,” he held up the Deluminator again, “came out of this.” “And what exactly did I say?” asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity. “My name. ‘Ron.’ And you said…something about a wand…” Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Harry remembered: It had been the first time Ron’s name had been said aloud by either of them since the day he had left; Hermione had mentioned it when talking about repairing Harry’s wand.

True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or a handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its devotion and its hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely great and the infinitely little. If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the sensitive plant; if you are a man, be love. Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1579 Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire paradise; we possess paradise, we desire heaven. Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love. Understand how to find it there. Love has contemplation as well as heaven, and more than heaven, it has voluptuousness. ‘Does she still come to the Luxembourg?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘This is the church where she attends mass, is it not?’ ‘She no longer comes here.’ ‘Does she still live in this house?’ ‘She has moved away.’ ‘Where has she gone to dwell?’ ‘She did not say.’ What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one’s soul! Love has its childishness, other passions have their pettinesses. Shame on the passions which belittle man! Honor to the one which makes a child of him! There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwell in the night. There is a being who carried off my sky when she went away. Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a finger,—that would suffice for my eternity! Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live in it. Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration is mingled with this torture. There is ecstasy in agony. Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing. 1580 Les Miserables Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise. Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it; it is a long trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown destiny. This destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the tomb. Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the definitive. The definitive, meditate upon that word. The living perceive the infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead. In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to him who shall have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes; water trickled through his shoes, and the stars through his soul. What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct.

Thanks again, sir.” Jules shook his hand again. “You’re welcome again,” the captain said, his smile warm. “I’ll be back aboard the ship myself at around nineteen hundred. If it’s okay with you, I’ll, uh, stop in, see how you’re doing.” Son of a bitch. Was Jules getting hit on? Max looked at Webster again. He looked like a Marine. Muscles, meticulous uniform, well-groomed hair. That didn’t make him gay. And he’d smiled warmly at Max, too. The man was friendly, personable. And yet . . . Jules was flustered. “Thanks,” he said. “That would be . . . That’d be nice. Would you excuse me, though, for a sec? I’ve got to speak to Max, before I, uh . . . But I’ll head over to the ship right away.” Webster shook Max’s hand. “It was an honor meeting you, sir.” He smiled again at Jules. Okay, he hadn’t smiled at Max like that. Max waited until the captain and the medic both were out of earshot. “Is he—” “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Jules said. “But, oh my God.” “He seems nice,” Max said. “Yes,” Jules said. “Yes, he does.” “So. The White House?” “Yeah. About that . . .” Jules took a deep breath. “I need to let you know that you might be getting a call from President Bryant.” “Might be,” Max repeated. “Yes,” Jules said. “In a very definite way.” He spoke quickly, trying to run his words together: “I had a very interesting conversation with him in which I kind of let slip that you’d resigned again and he was unhappy about that so I told him I might be able to persuade you to come back to work if he’d order three choppers filled with Marines to Meda Island as soon as possible.” “You called the President of the United States,” Max said. “During a time of international crisis, and basically blackmailed him into sending Marines.” Jules thought about that. “Yeah. Yup. Although it was a pretty weird phone call, because I was talking via radio to some grunt in the CIA office. I had him put the call to the President for me, and we did this kind of relay thing.” “You called the President,” Max repeated. “And you got through . . .?” “Yeah, see, I had your cell phone. I’d accidently switched them, and . . . The President’s direct line was in your address book, so . . .” Max nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s it?” Jules said. “Just, okay, you’ll come back? Can I call Alan to tell him? We’re on a first-name basis now, me and the Pres.” “No,” Max said. “There’s more. When you call your pal Alan, tell him I’m interested, but I’m looking to make a deal for a former Special Forces NCO.” “Grady Morant,” Jules said. “He’s got info on Heru Nusantra that the president will find interesting. In return, we want a full pardon and a new identity.” Jules nodded. “I think I could set that up.” He started for the helicopter, but then turned back. “What’s Webster’s first name? Do you know?” “Ben,” Max told him. “Have a nice vacation.” “Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to write that, like, on your hand or something. Jeez.” Max laughed. “Hey, Jules?” He turned back again. “Yes, sir?” “Thanks for being such a good friend.” Jules’s smile was beautiful. “You’re welcome, Max.” But that smile faded far too quickly. “Uh-oh, heads up—crying girlfriend on your six.” Ah, God, no . . . Max turned to see Gina, running toward him. Please God, let those be tears of joy. “What’s the verdict?” he asked her. Gina said the word he’d been praying for. “Benign.” Max took her in his arms, this woman who was the love of his life, and kissed her. Right in front of the Marines.

On the other side of the mountain, Drizzt Do'Urden opened his eyes from his daytime slumber. Emerging from the cave into the growing gloom, he found Wulfgar in the customary spot, poised meditatively on a high stone, staring out over the plain. "You long for your home?" the drow asked rhetorically. Wulfgar shrugged his huge shoulders and answered absently, "Perhaps." The barbarian had come to ask many disturbing questions of himself about his people and their way of life since he had learned respect for Drizzt. The Drow was an enigma to him, a confusing combination of fighting brilliance and absolute control. Drizzt seemed able to weigh every move he ever made in the scales of high adventure and indisputable morals. Wulfgar turned a questioning gaze on the drow. "Why are you here?" he asked suddenly. Now it was Drizzt who stared reflectively into the openness before them. The first stars of the evening had appeared, their reflections sparkling distinctively in the dark pools of the elf's eyes. But Drizzt was not seeing them; his mind was viewing long past images of the lightless cities of the drow in their immense cavern complexes far beneath the ground. "I remember," Drizzt recalled vividly, as terrible memories are often vivid, "'the first time I ever viewed this surface world. I was a much younger elf then, a member of a large raiding party. We slipped out from a secret cave and descended upon a small elven village." The drow flinched at the images as they flashed again in his mind. "My companions slaughtered every member of the wood elf clan. Every female. Every child." Wulfgar listened with growing horror. The raid that Drizzt was describing might well have been one perpetrated by the ferocious Tribe of the Elk. "My people kill," Drizzt went on grimly. "They kill without mercy." He locked his stare onto Wulfgar to make sure that the barbarian heard him well. "They kill without passion." He paused for a moment to let the barbarian absorb the full weight of his words. The simple yet definitive description of the cold killers had confused Wulfgar. He had been raised and nurtured among passionate warriors, fighters whose entire purpose in life was the pursuit of battle-glory - fighting in praise of Tempos. The young barbarian simply could not understand such emotionless cruelty. A subtle difference, though, Wulfgar had to admit. Drow or barbarian, the results of the raids were much the same. "The demon goddess they serve leaves no room for the other races," Drizzt explained. "Particularly the other races of elves." "But you will never come to be accepted in this world," said Wulfgar. "Surely you must know that the humans will ever shun you." Drizzt nodded. "Most," he agreed. "I have few that I can call friends, yet I am content. You see, barbarian, I have my own respect, without guilt, without shame." He rose from his crouch and started away into the darkness. "Come," he instructed. "Let us fight well this night, for I am satisfied with the improvement of your skills, and this part of your lessons nears its end." Wulfgar sat a moment longer in contemplation. The drow lived a hard and materially empty existence, yet he was richer than any man Wulfgar had ever known. Drizzt had clung to his principles against overwhelming circumstances, leaving the familiar world of his own people by choice to remain in a world where he would never be accepted or appreciated. He looked at the departing elf, now a mere shadow in the gloom. "Perhaps we two are not so different," he mumbled under his breath.

He rested on his back, loosening his hold on me, and I turned over so I was lying on my side, facing him. I rested a hand on his chest, and his eyes watched mine until his hand found my own. I murmured, “I don’t regret that.” He hooked his finger around mine. “Really?” I nodded. I couldn’t, not anymore. Not after we made out in my closet, then my bed, and after I was practically begging him for it at the bar. I croaked, “I touched your bulge.” He started laughing, curving more into me. “You did.” “It was the most momentous and memorable part of the night.” I was grinning. He lifted his head. “Really?” He wasn’t. I nodded. “For sure. I became the definition of a wanton hussy.” He started laughing again. I kept going, “I can imagine all the stories that start with, ‘The day she touched my bulge’, or ‘The day I touched his bulge,’ ‘The moment my hand felt his jeans, and his dick swelled underneath’, or even . . .” I was laughing now, “‘I laid my hands on him, right over his jeans, and he rose up. He answered my call. I called out, Come forth, hard penis, and answer milady’s beckoning. My hips call upon your touch. You must heed and give forth plentiful of your pleasure.’” He continued laughing, wrapping his arms around me, and somehow he had curled his entire body around mine again. I was lying on my back once more, and he stopped, lifting his head from my neck. He gazed down at me, shifting to rise up on his elbow. He caught some hairs and tucked them behind my ear, letting his hand linger there, holding me gently. He grew serious. “I want to keep doing this.” I rested my hand over his on my face. “Fucking me from behind?” He grinned and then sobered. “No. This, whatever it is. We don’t need to put words to it, if you don’t want to.” I groaned. “Please, don’t. I tend to get bitchy when words are applied to situations

Again you must learn the point which comes next. Every circle, of those which are by the act of man drawn or even turned on a lathe, is full of that which is opposite to the fifth thing. For everywhere it has contact with the straight. But the circle itself, we say, has nothing in either smaller or greater, of that which is its opposite. We say also that the name is not a thing of permanence for any of them, and that nothing prevents the things now called round from being called straight, and the straight things round; for those who make changes and call things by opposite names, nothing will be less permanent (than a name). Again with regard to the definition, if it is made up of names and verbal forms, the same remark holds that there is no sufficiently durable permanence in it. And there is no end to the instances of the ambiguity from which each of the four suffers; but the greatest of them is that which we mentioned a little earlier, that, whereas there are two things, that which has real being, and that which is only a quality, when the soul is seeking to know, not the quality, but the essence, each of the four, presenting to the soul by word and in act that which it is not seeking (i.e., the quality), a thing open to refutation by the senses, being merely the thing presented to the soul in each particular case whether by statement or the act of showing, fills, one may say, every man with puzzlement and perplexity. [...] But in subjects where we try to compel a man to give a clear answer about the fifth, any one of those who are capable of overthrowing an antagonist gets the better of us, and makes the man, who gives an exposition in speech or writing or in replies to questions, appear to most of his hearers to know nothing of the things on which he is attempting to write or speak; for they are sometimes not aware that it is not the mind of the writer or speaker which is proved to be at fault, but the defective nature of each of the four instruments. The process however of dealing with all of these, as the mind moves up and down to each in turn, does after much effort give birth in a well-constituted mind to knowledge of that which is well constituted. [...] Therefore, if men are not by nature kinship allied to justice and all other things that are honourable, though they may be good at learning and remembering other knowledge of various kinds-or if they have the kinship but are slow learners and have no memory-none of all these will ever learn to the full the truth about virtue and vice. For both must be learnt together; and together also must be learnt, by complete and long continued study, as I said at the beginning, the true and the false about all that has real being. After much effort, as names, definitions, sights, and other data of sense, are brought into contact and friction one with another, in the course of scrutiny and kindly testing by men who proceed by question and answer without ill will, with a sudden flash there shines forth understanding about every problem, and an intelligence whose efforts reach the furthest limits of human powers. Therefore every man of worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among men by committing them to writing. In one word, then, it may be known from this that, if one sees written treatises composed by anyone, either the laws of a lawgiver, or in any other form whatever, these are not for that man the things of most worth, if he is a man of worth, but that his treasures are laid up in the fairest spot that he possesses. But if these things were worked at by him as things of real worth, and committed to writing, then surely, not gods, but men "have themselves bereft him of his wits".

These senators and representatives call themselves “leaders.” One of the primary principles of leadership is that a leader never asks or orders any follower to do what he or she would not do themselves. Such action requires the demonstration of the acknowledged traits of a leader among which are integrity, honesty, and courage, both physical and moral courage. They don’t have those traits nor are they willing to do what they ask and order. Just this proves we elect people who shouldn’t be leading the nation. When the great calamity and pain comes, it will have been earned and deserved. The piper always has to be paid at the end of the party. The party is about over. The bill is not far from coming due. Everybody always wants the guilty identified. The culprits are we the people, primarily the baby boom generation, which allowed their vote to be bought with entitlements at the expense of their children, who are now stuck with the national debt bill that grows by the second and cannot be paid off. These follow-on citizens—I call them the screwed generation—are doomed to lifelong grief and crushing debt unless they take the only other course available to them, which is to repudiate that debt by simply printing up $20 trillion, calling in all federal bills, bonds, and notes for payoff, and then changing from the green dollar to say a red dollar, making the exchange rate 100 or 1000 green dollars for 1 red dollar or even more to get to zero debt. Certainly this will create a great international crisis. But that crisis is coming anyhow. In fact it is here already. The U.S. has no choice but to eventually default on that debt. This at least will be a controlled default rather than an uncontrolled collapse. At present it is out of control. Congress hasn’t come up with a budget in 3 years. That’s because there is no way at this point to create a viable budget that will balance and not just be a written document verifying that we cannot legitimately pay our bills and that we are on an ever-descending course into greater and greater debt. A true, honest budget would but verify that we are a bankrupt nation. We are repeating history, the history we failed to learn from. The history of Rome. Our TV and video games are the equivalent distractions of the Coliseums and circus of Rome. Our printing and borrowing of money to cover our deficit spending is the same as the mixing and devaluation of the gold Roman sisteri with copper. Our dysfunctional and ineffectual Congress is as was the Roman Senate. Our Presidential executive orders the same as the dictatorial edicts of Caesar. Our open borders and multi-millions of illegal alien non-citizens the same as the influx of the Germanic and Gallic tribes. It is as if we were intentionally following the course written in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The military actions, now 11 years in length, of Iraq and Afghanistan are repeats of the Vietnam fiasco and the RussianAfghan incursion. Our creep toward socialism is no different and will bring the same implosion as socialism did in the U.S.S.R. One should recognize that the repeated application of failed solutions to the same problem is one of the clinical definitions of insanity. * * * I am old, ill, physically used up now. I can’t have much time left in this life. I accept that. All born eventually die and with the life I’ve lived, I probably should have been dead decades ago. Fate has allowed me to screw the world out of a lot of years. I do have one regret: the future holds great challenge. I would like to see that challenge met and overcome and this nation restored to what our founding fathers envisioned. I’d like to be a part of that. Yeah. “I’d like to do it again.” THE END PHOTOS Daniel Hill 1954 – 15

..."facts" properly speaking are always and never more than interpretations of the data... the Gospel accounts are themselves such data or, if you like, hard facts. But the events to which the Gospels refer are not themselves "hard facts"; they are facts only in the sense that we interpret the text, together with such other data as we have, to reach a conclusion regarding the events as best we are able. They are facts in the same way that the verdict of a jury establishes the facts of the case, the interpretation of the evidence that results in the verdict delivered. Here it is as well to remember that historical methodology can only produce probabilities, the probability that some event took place in such circumstances being greater or smaller, depending on the quality of the data and the perspective of the historical enquirer. The jury which decides what is beyond reasonable doubt is determining that the probability is sufficiently high for a clear-cut verdict to be delivered. Those who like "certainty" in matters of faith will always find this uncomfortable. But faith is not knowledge of "hard facts"...; it is rather confidence, assurance, trust in the reliability of the data and in the integrity of the interpretations derived from that data... It does seem important to me that those who speak for evangelical Christians grasp this nettle firmly, even if it stings! – it is important for the intellectual integrity of evangelicals. Of course any Christian (and particularly evangelical Christians) will want to get as close as possible to the Jesus who ministered in Galilee in the late 20s of the first century. If, as they believe, God spoke in and through that man, more definitively and finally than at any other time and by any other medium, then of course Christians will want to hear as clearly as possible what he said, and to see as clearly as possible what he did, to come as close as possible to being an eyewitness and earwitness for themselves. If God revealed himself most definitively in the historical particularity of a Galilean Jew in the earliest decades of the Common Era, then naturally those who believe this will want to inquire as closely into the historical particularity and actuality of that life and of Jesus’ mission. The possibility that later faith has in some degree covered over that historical actuality cannot be dismissed as out of the question. So a genuinely critical historical inquiry is necessary if we are to get as close to the historical actuality as possible. Critical here, and this is the point, should not be taken to mean negatively critical, hermeneutical suspicion, dismissal of any material that has overtones of Easter faith. It means, more straightforwardly, a careful scrutiny of all the relevant data to gain as accurate or as historically responsible a picture as possible. In a day when evangelical, and even Christian, is often identified with a strongly right-wing, conservative and even fundamentalist attitude to the Bible, it is important that responsible evangelical scholars defend and advocate such critical historical inquiry and that their work display its positive outcome and benefits. These include believers growing in maturity • to recognize gray areas and questions to which no clear-cut answer can be given (‘we see in a mirror dimly/a poor reflection’), • to discern what really matters and distinguish them from issues that matter little, • and be able to engage in genuine dialogue with those who share or respect a faith inquiring after truth and seeking deeper understanding. In that way we may hope that evangelical (not to mention Christian) can again become a label that men and women of integrity and good will can respect and hope to learn from more than most seem to do today.

Sam’s the man who’s come to chop us up to bits. No wonder I kicked him out. No wonder I changed the locks. If he cannot stop death, what good is he? ‘Open the door. Please. I’m so tired,’ he says. I look at the night that absorbed my life. How am I supposed to know what’s love, what’s fear? ‘If you’re Sam who am I?’ ‘I know who you are.’ ‘You do?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Who?’ Don’t say wife, I think. Don’t say mother. I put my face to the glass, but it’s dark. I don’t reflect. Sam and I watch each other through the window of the kitchen door. He coughs some more. ‘I want to come home,’ he says. ‘I want us to be okay. That’s it. Simple. I want to come home and be a family.’ ‘But I am not simple.’ My body’s coursing with secret genes and hormones and proteins. My body made eyeballs and I have no idea how. There’s nothing simple about eyeballs. My body made food to feed those eyeballs. How? And how can I not know or understand the things that happen inside my body? That seems very dangerous. There’s nothing simple here. I’m ruled by elixirs and compounds. I am a chemistry project conducted by a wild child. I am potentially explosive. Maybe I love Sam because hormones say I need a man to kill the coyotes at night, to bring my babies meat. But I don’t want caveman love. I want love that lives outside the body. I want love that lives. ‘In what ways are you not simple?’ I think of the women I collected upstairs. They’re inside me. And they are only a small fraction of the catalog. I think of molds, of the sea, the biodiversity of plankton. I think of my dad when he was a boy, when he was a tree bud. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say, and then the things I don’t say yet. Words aren’t going to be the best way here. How to explain something that’s coming into existence? ‘I get that now.’ His shoulders tremble some. They jerk. He coughs. I have infected him. ‘Sam.’ We see each other through the glass. We witness each other. That’s something, to be seen by another human, to be seen over all the years. That’s something, too. Love plus time. Love that’s movable, invisible as a liquid or gas, love that finds a way in. Love that leaks. ‘Unlock the door,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to love you because I’m scared.’ ‘So you imagine bad things about me. You imagine me doing things I’ve never done to get rid of me. Kick me out so you won’t have to worry about me leaving?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ And I’m glad he gets that. Sam cocks his head the same way a coyote might, a coyote who’s been temporarily confused by a question of biology versus mortality. What’s the difference between living and imagining? What’s the difference between love and security? Coyotes are not moral. ‘Unlock the door?’ he asks. This family is an experiment, the biggest I’ve ever been part of, an experiment called: How do you let someone in? ‘Unlock the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’ I release the lock. I open the door. That’s the best definition of love. Sam comes inside. He turns to shut the door, then stops himself. He stares out into the darkness where he came from. What does he think is out there? What does he know? Or is he scared I’ll kick him out again? That is scary. ‘What if we just left the door open?’ he asks. ‘Open.’ And more, more things I don’ts say about the bodies of women. ‘Yeah.’ ‘What about skunks?’ I mean burglars, gangs, evil. We both peer out into the dark, looking for thees scary things. We watch a long while. The night does nothing. ‘We could let them in if they want in,’ he says, but seems uncertain still. ‘Really?’ He draws the door open wider and we leave it that way, looking out at what we can’t see. Unguarded, unafraid, love and loved. We keep the door open as if there are no doors, no walls, no skin, no houses, no difference between us and all the things we think of as the night.

Dear Peter K, First of all I refuse to call you Kavinsky. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all of a sudden. Just so you know, Kavinsky sounds like the name of an old man with a long white beard. Did you know that when you kissed me, I would come to love you? Sometimes I think yes. Definitely yes. You know why? Because you think EVERYONE loves you, Peter. That’s what I hate about you. Because everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore. Here are all your worst qualities: You burp and you don’t say excuse me. You just assume everyone else will find it charming. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you. You always take the last piece of pizza. You never ask if anyone else wants it. That’s rude. You’re so good at everything. Too good. You could’ve given other guys a chance to be good, but you never did. You kissed me for no reason. Even though I knew you liked Gen, and you knew you liked Gen, and Gen knew you liked Gen. But you still did it. Just because you could. I really want to know: Why would you do that to me? My first kiss was supposed to be something special. I’ve read about it, what it’s supposed to feel like00fireworks and lightning bolts and the sound of waves crashing in your ears. I didn’t have any of that. Thanks to you it was as unspecial as a kiss could be. The worst part of it is, that stupid nothing kiss is what made me start liking you. I never did before. I never even thought about you before. Gen has always said that you are the best-looking boy in our grade, and I agreed, because sure, you are. But I still didn’t see the allure of you. Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool. Maybe that’s why you kissed me. To do mind control on me, to make me see you that way. It worked. Your little trick worked. From then on, I saw you. Up close, your face wasn’t so much handsome as beautiful. How many beautiful boys have you ever seen? For me it was just one. You. I think it’s a lot to do with your lashes. You have really long lashes. Unfairly long. Even though you don’t deserve it, fine, I’ll go into all the things I like(d) about you: One time in science, nobody wanted to be partners with Jeffrey Suttleman because he has BO, and you volunteered like it was no big deal. Suddenly everybody thought Jeffrey wasn’t so bad. You’re still in chorus, even though all the other boys take band and orchestra now. You even sing solos. And you dance, and you’re not embarrassed. You were the last boy to get tall. And now you’re the tallest, but it’s like you earned it. Also, when you were short, no one even cared that you were short--the girls still liked you and the boys still picked you first for basketball in gym. After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and most of eighth. It hasn’t been easy, watching you with Gen, holding hands and making out at the bus stop. You probably make her feel very special. Because that’s your talent, right? You’re good at making people feel special. Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way? Probably not. People like you don’t have to suffer through those kinds of things. It was easier after Gen moved and we stopped being friends. At least then I didn’t have to hear about it. And now that the year is almost over, I know for sure that I am also over you. I’m immune to you now, Peter. I’m really proud to say that I’m the only girl in this school who has been immunized to the charms of Peter Kavinsky. All because I had a really bad dose of you in seventh grade and most of eighth. Now I never ever have to worry about catching you again. What a relief! I bet if I did ever kiss you again, I would definitely catch something, and it wouldn’t be love. It would be an STD! Lara Jean Song

Every time we sit down to breakfast, we are likely to be benefiting from a dozen such prehistoric inventions. Who was the first person to figure out that you could make bread rise by the addition of those microorganisms we call yeasts? We have no idea, but we can be almost certain she was a woman and would most likely not be considered ‘white’ if she tried to immigrate to a European country today; and we definitely know her achievement continues to enrich the lives of billions of people. What we also know is that such discoveries were, again, based on centuries of accumulated knowledge and experimentation – recall how the basic principles of agriculture were known long before anyone applied them systematically – and that the results of such experiments were often preserved and transmitted through ritual, games and forms of play (or even more, perhaps, at the point where ritual, games and play shade into each other). ‘Gardens of Adonis’ are a fitting symbol here. Knowledge about the nutritious properties and growth cycles of what would later become staple crops, feeding vast populations – wheat, rice, corn – was initially maintained through ritual play farming of exactly this sort. Nor was this pattern of discovery limited to crops. Ceramics were first invented, long before the Neolithic, to make figurines, miniature models of animals and other subjects, and only later cooking and storage vessels. Mining is first attested as a way of obtaining minerals to be used as pigments, with the extraction of metals for industrial use coming only much later. Mesoamerican societies never employed wheeled transport; but we know they were familiar with spokes, wheels and axles since they made toy versions of them for children. Greek scientists famously came up with the principle of the steam engine, but only employed it to make temple doors that appeared to open of their own accord, or similar theatrical illusions. Chinese scientists, equally famously, first employed gunpowder for fireworks.

One day Marlboro Man invited my sister, Betsy, and me to the ranch to work cattle. She was home from college and bored, and Marlboro Man wanted Tim to meet another member of my family. “Working cattle” is the term used to describe the process of pushing cattle, one by one, through a working chute, during which time they are branded, dehorned, ear tagged, and “doctored” (temperature taken, injections given). The idea is to get all the trauma and mess over with in one fell swoop so the animals can spend their days grazing peacefully in the pasture. When Betsy and I pulled up and parked, Tim greeted us at the chute and immediately assigned us our duties. He handed my sister a hot shot, which is used to gently zap the animal’s behind to get it to move through the chute. It’s considered the easy job. “You’ll be pushing ’em through,” Tim told Betsy. She dutifully took the hot shot, studying the oddly shaped object in her hands. Next, Tim handed me an eight-inch-long, thick-gauge probe with some kind of electronic device attached. “You’ll be taking their temperature,” Tim informed me. Easy enough, I thought. But how does this thing fit into its ear? Or does it slide under its arm somehow? Perhaps I insert it under the tongue? Will the cows be okay with this? Tim showed me to my location--at the hind end of the chute. “You just wait till the steer gets locked in the chute,” Tim directed. “Then you push the stick all the way in and wait till I tell you to take it out.” Come again? The bottom fell out of my stomach as my sister shot me a worried look, and I suddenly wished I’d eaten something before we came. I felt weak. I didn’t dare question the brother of the man who made my heart go pitter-pat, but…in the bottom? Up the bottom? Seriously? Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan.

My eyes widened at that offer. I’d missed riding since coming to the Academy and I hadn’t really thought I’d be able to get out again any time soon. But I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know quite how much this meant to me. Every other piece of information the Heirs had gotten on me up until now had been twisted against me in some way and I didn’t want them trying to take this from me too. “I’m not really dressed for it,” I said slowly though in all honesty I had no issue with tying my dress in a knot around my waist if that was what it took to get me out on the road. “I’m sure I could lend you my shirt if you want to take it off,” he replied. “That would require both of us taking off rather a lot of our clothes.” There was a dare hanging in the air between us and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to resist it much longer. I eyed the line up of bikes, my heart beating a little faster as I tried to decide which one I’d choose. In all honesty I was too drunk to ride, although the sandwich was mopping up some of the excess alcohol and I was feeling a little less dizzy... It still wouldn’t have been the best idea though. “Why do you have the same bikes that that they have in the mortal world?” I asked as I began to wander between the immaculate machines. Some of the badges were different, I read names like Yamaharpy, Sphinxzuki, Hondusa, Harley Dragonson and I couldn’t keep the smirk from my lips but the actual bikes were definitely mortal models. “There are several permanent rifts between our world and the mortal world where we import all sorts of goods like these. The importers like to change the names as a kind of in-joke but a hell of a lot of our products come straight out of Taiwan or China, direct to Solaria,” Darius explained. “Why?” I asked. “Can’t Fae invent their own bikes and cars?” “I guess we could... but why bother? We’ve got better things to do with our time and it makes sense to use the mortals like our own personal goods suppliers. The Fae they deal with even manage to Coerce the best prices for everything we import. No Fae vendor would create any of the things we desire so cheaply.” Darius folded his arms and leaned back to perch on the saddle of a stunning green bike as he watched my exploration. “So you basically abuse the mortals with your power?” I asked. “We use our power to take what we want from them,” he agreed. “Just the same as we do with other Fae.” He had a point there; Fae were equally asshole-like to their own kind. (Tory)

Mark swings his own door open and meets us by the tailgate. "Why don't we ask Emma who she's coming with? I mean, it's her choice, right?" The look Galen gives me is clear: Take care of this, or I will. Or maybe it's more like, It would be my pleasure to take care of this. Either way, I don't want Mark taken care of. Standing between them, the testosterone-to-air ratio is almost suffocating. If I pick Galen, the chances of Mark ever calling me again are as good as Galen eating a whole cheesecake by himself. If I choose Mark, the changes of Galen not wielding his built-in brass knuckles are as good as Rayna giving someone a compliment. My desire to salvage this date with Mark is almost as strong as my desire to salvage his face from certain disfigurement. But salvaging the date as opposed to his face would be selfish in the long run. I sigh in defeat. "I'm sorry, Mark." Mark lets out a gust of air. "Ouch." Scratching the back of his neck, he chuckles. "I guess I should be more superstitious, huh?" He's right. I screwed this up. I should have salvaged the date, his pride. And I should have broken Galen's Royal nose with my own Syrena fist. I turn to His Highness. "Galen, could you give me a minute please? You'll have the next hour to talk to me since you're taking me straight home." Without a word, Galen nods and walks away. I can't quite meet Mark's eyes when I say, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what his deal is. He never acts like this." Except that time he beat Toraf like a stepchild on the beach when he kissed me. But only because Toraf betrayed Rayna. Right? Mark smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Can't say I blame him. I can already tell you're worth it. I just never had the guts to ask you out. Chloe threatened my life. You know that chick could hit like a man, right? She said you were too good for me. I think she was right." "Wh...what? Chloe knew you liked me?" "Yeah. She never told you? Course not. She thought I was a player." I not, still too stunned that my best friend also acted as my bodyguard without me knowing. "She did think you were a player. And she couldn't definitely hit like a man." "That's what my friend Jax says anyway." Then a little lower, "Geez, Galen's watching me like a hawk right now. He has serial-killer eyes, you know that?" I giggle. "What do you think he'd do if I kissed you good-bye on the cheek?" he whispers conspiratorially. "Don't worry, I'll protect you." He has no idea how serious I am. As he leans in, I brace myself. At the slightest spark of electricity, I'm prepared to turn around with my fists up. But the lightning doesn't strike. Galen is behaving for now. As Mark pulls away from his barely there peck, he sighs. "Do me a favor," he whispers. "Mmm?" "Keep my number. Give me a call if he screws up again." I smile. "I will, I promise. I had a good time tonight." Did the date and Mark's face get salvaged? Do I have a chance to redeem myself with him? He chuckles. "Yeah, glad we got to drive here from Middle Point together. next time, we'll make it a real adventure and take the bus. See you at school, Emma." "Bye.

Marx discovered the significance of economic power; and it is understandable that he exaggerated its status. He and the Marxists see economic power everywhere. Their argument runs: he who has the money has the power; for if necessary, he can buy guns and even gangsters. But this is a roundabout argument. In fact, it contains an admission that the man who has the gun has the power. And if he who has the gun becomes aware of this, then it may not be long until he has both the gun and the money. But under an unrestrained capitalism, Marx’s argument applies, to some extent; for a rule which develops institutions for the control of guns and gangsters but not of the power of money is liable to come under the influence of this power. In such a state, an uncontrolled gangsterism of wealth may rule. But Marx himself, I think, would have been the first to admit that this is not true of all states; that there have been times in history when, for example, all exploitation was looting, directly based upon the power of the mailed fist. And to-day there will be few to support the naïve view that the ‘progress of history’ has once and for all put an end to these more direct ways of exploiting men, and that, once formal freedom has been achieved, it is impossible for us to fall again under the sway of such primitive forms of exploitation. These considerations would be sufficient for refuting the dogmatic doctrine that economic power is more fundamental than physical power, or the power of the state. But there are other considerations as well. As has been rightly emphasized by various writers (among them Bertrand Russell and Walter Lippmann25), it is only the active intervention of the state—the protection of property by laws backed by physical sanctions—which makes of wealth a potential source of power; for without this intervention, a man would soon be without his wealth. Economic power is therefore entirely dependent on political and physical power. Russell gives historical examples which illustrate this dependence, and sometimes even helplessness, of wealth: ‘Economic power within the state,’ he writes26, ‘although ultimately derived from law and public opinion, easily acquires a certain independence. It can influence law by corruption and public opinion by propaganda. It can put politicians under obligations which interfere with their freedom. It can threaten to cause a financial crisis. But there are very definite limits to what it can achieve. Cæsar was helped to power by his creditors, who saw no hope of repayment except through his success; but when he had succeeded he was powerful enough to defy them. Charles V borrowed from the Fuggers the money required to buy the position of Emperor, but when he had become Emperor he snapped his fingers at them and they lost what they had lent.’ The dogma that economic power is at the root of all evil must be discarded. Its place must be taken by an understanding of the dangers of any form of uncontrolled power. Money as such is not particularly dangerous. It becomes dangerous only if it can buy power, either directly, or by enslaving the economically weak who must sell themselves in order to live.