Dolls Good Quotes

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.

What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.

Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.

Things to worry about: Worry about courage Worry about cleanliness Worry about efficiency Worry about horsemanship Things not to worry about: Don’t worry about popular opinion Don’t worry about dolls Don’t worry about the past Don’t worry about the future Don’t worry about growing up Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you Don’t worry about triumph Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault Don’t worry about mosquitoes Don’t worry about flies Don’t worry about insects in general Don’t worry about parents Don’t worry about boys Don’t worry about disappointments Don’t worry about pleasures Don’t worry about satisfactions Things to think about: What am I really aiming at? How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to: (a) Scholarship (b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them? (c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it? With dearest love, Daddy

Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole. I doubt that I’m the only one who feels this way. It’s the core of monster making, actually. Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable—your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers—and pretend they’re across the room. It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with. Adults are afraid of themselves. Oh we’re a mess, poor humans, poor flesh—hybrids of angels and animals, dolls with diamonds stuffed inside them. We’ve been to the moon and we’re still fighting over Jerusalem. Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It’s two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I’d know it was something true. Now I’m trying to dig deeper.

Now that we all have partners, all husbands should come pick up their projects." Pick up our project? Shrugging, I stand up and stretch my arms. Henry also stands. "No way, dude," I say. "I'm the man in this relationship." "Oh yeah, absolutely," he says, grinning. He sits back down as I walk to the closet to see this project, which turns out to be one of those fake electronic babies. Oh good God. Ms. Bonner hands me a fake baby boy. The doll has these creepy glass eyes that look like they’re staring straight into my soul. I hold the doll out in front of me like it's a flaming bag of poo and carry it back to Henry. "Congratulations, Mommy," I say, dropping the doll into his hands. You could've told me I knocked you up.

Oh we're a mess, poor humans, poor flesh—hybrids of angels and animals, dolls with diamonds stuffed inside them. We've been to the moon and we're still fighting over Jerusalem. Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It's two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I'd know it was something true. Now I'm trying to dig deeper.

If they were real, then maybe the world was big enough to have magic in it. And if there was magic — even bad magic, and Zach knew it was more likely that there was bad magic than any good kind — then maybe not everyone had to have a story like his father's, a story like the kind all the adults he knew told, one about giving up and growing bitter.

What if people really did that - sent their love through the mail to get rid of it? What would it be that they sent? A box of chocolates with centers like the yolks of turkey eggs. A mud doll with hollow eye sockets. A heap of roses slightly more fragrant than rotten. A package wrapped in bloody newspaper that nobody would want to open.

And all was not perfect, but it was very good.

The good news: he dropped Annabeth. The bad news: he dropped her headfirst onto the rocks, where she lay motionless as a rag doll.

In a way he made me think of a child doll, with briliant faintly red-brown glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him evevn more radiant than he was. "That's what you always want," he said softly... "When you found me under Les Innocents," he said, "you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvevt with great embroidered sleeves." "Yes," I said, "and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair." My tone was angry. "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.

Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever "truer." The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to "landscape" the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future? One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each "shell" (the present) encased inside a nest of "shells" (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of "now"likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future.

I have always seen great value in practicing kindness. Although I had no money to buy gifts as a child, I gave my friends the gift of song to cheer them up. Depending on the situation, I’d sing to them and make up melodies and lyrics on the spot about whatever was going on in their lives. If a girlfriend was lonely or heartbroken, I’d make up a song about the handsome and adoring boyfriend I imagined coming into her life. Or if a friend felt deprived or neglected, I’d make up a song about a gift of a shiny new doll, or a velvet party dress, that I knew would make her happy.

Colin's chuckles grew more heartfelt. "You really ought to have more faith in your favorite brother, dear sis." "He’s your favorite brother?" Simon asked, one dark brow raised in disbelief. "Only because Gregory put a toad in my bed last night," Daphne bit off, "and Benedict's standing has never recovered from the time he beheaded my favorite doll." "Makes me wonder what Anthony's done to deny him even an honorable mention," Colin murmured. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Daphne asked pointedly. Colin shrugged. "Not really." "Didn't," she asked through clenched teeth, "you just tell me you promised a dance to Prudence Featherington?" "Gads, no. You must have misheard." "Perhaps Mother is looking for you, then. In fact, I'm certain I hear her calling your name." Colin grinned at her discomfort. "You're not supposed to be so obvious," he said in a stage whisper, purposely loud enough for Simon to hear. "He'll figure out that you like him." Simon's entire body jerked with barely contained mirth. "It's not his company I'm trying to secure," Daphne said acidly. "It's yours I'm trying to avoid." Colin clapped a hand over his heart. "You wound me, Daff." He turned to Simon. "Oh, how she wounds me." "You missed your calling, Bridgerton," Simon said genially. "You should have been on the stage." "An interesting idea," Colin replied, "but one that would surely give my mother the vapors." His eyes lit up. "Now that's an idea. And just when the party was growing tedious. Good eve to you both." He executed a smart bow and walked off.

Speaking of, “When is your birthday?” Strider asked Kaia. Wide silver-gold eyes swung to him. “You don’t know?” “No.” Pouting, she twirled a strand of her hair. “How can you not know?” “Do you know mine?” he asked. “Of course I do. It’s the day you met me. As good a day as any. “No, it’s not, because that was a trick question, baby doll. I don’t actually have a birthday. I was created fully formed, not born.” True story. “You can be such a moron.” She threw up her arms, exasperated. “Don’t argue with me about this kind of thing. I’ll always be right. Seriously. You were dead until you met me and we both know it. Which means I brought you to life. So, happy belated birthday.

When a young lady no longer plays with baby dolls or toy kitchens, and she’s trying to find where she fits in today’s society, she is told she needs to learn how to cook, clean, wash, and provide for her husband and family. Why is that so?

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.

I liked dolls as a child, but as an adult, I love them! They represent the good in all of us and display the diverse beauty of humankind.

I reach for the napkin, and as I do I catch sight of my hands. They are knobby and crooked, thin-skinned, and—like my ruined face—covered with liver spots. My face. I push the porridge aside and open my vanity mirror. I should know better by now, but somehow I still expect to see myself. Instead, I find an Appalachian apple doll, withered and spotty, with dewlaps and bags and long floppy ears. A few strands of white hair spring absurdly from its spotted skull. I try to brush the hairs flat with my hand and freeze at the sight of my old hand on my old head. I lean close and open my eyes very wide, trying to see beyond the sagging flesh. It's no good. Even when I look straight into the milky blue eyes, I can't find myself anymore. When did I stop being me?

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he’d promised her, making the father angry?” (p.3)

As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?

That is how I feel about you. You are my doll. I like the idea of dressing you the way I see fit. I want you to look good. Besides, I like that every stitch on your body has been paid for by me.

Mary and Laura clung tight to their rag dolls and did not say anything. The cousins stood around and looked at them. Grandma and all the aunts hugged and kissed them and hugged and kissed them again, saying good-by.

What was the good of trying to keep your own (children) if when they grew up their days were like your own- changeovers and ugly painted dolls?

What good would that ever do me if you were gone from this world, as you say? Not the slightest.

Doll face, even if I'm a guy, I'm 100 percent gay. My hot dog won't even get hard over staring at your bun. It's all good. I know what I'm doing. Low, come and hold her hand.

Life was small but good. (15)

He who writes is the martyr, seen through the eyes of the unassuming doll.

…watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart — all complete.

I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn’t anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops… Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it’s always the same way… They’ll have some old bag on the payroll — I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they’ll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she’s the dame that always waits on me.

Time is tick, tick, ticking away. How many souls will I capture today? Will they be a challenge or will they be given? Only time will tell as the clock keeps tick, tick, ticking. Your god has arrived with enough hatred for y’all, with enough evil for the big and small, so come one, come all. I will shred your souls and place them in my satchel, call you a settler and make you my peddler. Come one, come all, come stand behind your god. I will lead you into the darkness of Earth's end. Come one, come all, my wilted flowers, come claim your title, speak out and cheer it. Come one, come all, let’s have a ball, my wilted flowers . . . Sweet, Unconquerable Spirits.

He loves me so he hurts me To try and make me good. It doesn't work. I'm just too bad And don't do what I should. My memory has so many different sections and, like all survivors, there are so many compartments with so many triggers. I'll remember a smell which reminds me of a man which reminds me of a place which reminds me of another man who I think was with a woman who had a certain smell — and I'm back to square one. This is the case for most survivors, I believe. When we try to put together our pasts, the triggers are many and varied, the memories are disjointed — and why wouldn't they be? We were children. Even someone with an idyllic childhood who is only trying to remember the lovely things which happened to them will scratch their head and wonder who gave them that doll and was it for Christmas or their third birthday? Did they have a party when they were four or five? When did they go on a plane for the first time? You see, even happy memories are hard to piece together — so imagine how hard it is to collate all of the trauma, to pull together all of the things I've been trying to push away for so many years.

Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out.

​As a little girl, a woman is groomed to become a wife and a mother. She is trained to always make wise decisions, yet there will forever be limits and boundaries. As I look back, I remember being told what I could and could not do, simply because I was a girl. A little girl is told she cannot act like a boy; if she does, she will be classified as a “tomboy”. Climbing trees was prohibited, instead, she was taught to put a baby doll in a stroller and take the doll for a walk. She couldn’t sit as she pleased; she was told to only sit with her ankles crossed. Girls were given a kitchen playset that was equipped with a stove, sink, and an accessory set of play food dishes, pots, and pans, etc., along with a tea set to bring out the “elegance” in them. As the saying goes, “Girls are sugar and spice, and everything nice.” I’m taken aback by how girls are groomed to be a certain way; however, boys are able to love life and live freely without limitations and criticism.

Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn't Susan's fault that she was only a corncob. Sometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she did it only when Susan couldn't see.

Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS. "What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door. "You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day." I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me. "I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!" Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy. My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak.

On a trip to Russia I bought one of those Matryoshka “nested dolls” that break apart at the waist to reveal smaller and smaller dolls inside…it occurred to me to me later that each of us, like the nested dolls, contains multiple selves, making us a mysterious combination of good and evil, wisdom and folly, reason and instinct… (pp.80)

Rock City begins as an ornamental garden on a mountain side: its visitors walk a path that takes them through rocks, over rocks, between rocks. They throw corn into a deer enclosure, cross a hanging bridge, and peer out through a-quarter-a-throw binoculars at a view that promises them seven states on the rare sunny days when the air is perfectly clear. And from there, like a drop into some strange hell, the path takes visitors, millions upon millions of them every year, down into caverns, where they stare at black-lit dolls arranged into nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale dioramas. When they leave, they leave bemused, uncertain of why they came, of what they have seen, of whether they had a good time or not.

Gust used to explain the whole world that way: the mind as a house living in the house of the body, living in the house of a house, living in the larger house of the town, in the larger house of the state, in the houses of America and society and the universe. He said these houses fit inside one another like the Russian nesting dolls they bought for Harriet.

Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn’t Susan’s fault that she was only a corncob.

Besides, the one good thing about having the worst thing you can imagine actually happen is that nothing else is ever quite as scary again.

Maybe we should dance and dream and pray for the good of everything in the world because we’re meant to restore it together.

At court you must say less than you think and only speak as much of the truth as will do you good.

Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan.

Ridcully sat in horrified amazement. He’d always enjoyed Hogswatch, every bit of it. He’d enjoyed seeing ancient relatives, he’d enjoyed the food, he’d been good at games like Chase My Neighbor up the Passage and Hooray Jolly Tinker. He was always the first to don a paper hat. He felt that paper hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender. Listening to his wizards was like watching someone kick apart a doll’s house.

In the US where the girls are doing not as well as boys in some tests, the information seems to be interpreted as showing that girls just aren't as good at these things so we can't expect them to be mathematicians. But here in the UK people are reacting to boys not doing as well as girls in maths exams by saying, what can we do about that, we need to fix that ... This difference is telling.

I thank God for every minute you’ve ever given me. Even the bad minutes.” He paused, bringing his face closer. “You told me once you thought you’d broken us. You didn’t break us, doll. You fixed us. Those bad minutes shaped us into what we are. They molded us into what we’re going to be together. We were written for one another, and I wouldn’t change one line in our romance novel. The good, the bad, the in-between. It’s ours. We own it.

Oh," he said again and picked up two petals of cherry blossom which he folded together like a sandwich and ate slowly. "Supposing," he said, staring past her at the wall of the house, "you saw a little man, about as tall as a pencil, with a blue patch in his trousers, halfway up a window curtain, carrying a doll's tea cup-would you say it was a fairy?" "No," said Arrietty, "I'd say it was my father." "Oh," said the boy, thinking this out, "does your father have a blue patch on his trousers?" "Not on his best trousers. He does on his borrowing ones." 'Oh," said the boy again. He seemed to find it a safe sound, as lawyers do. "Are there many people like you?" "No," said Arrietty. "None. We're all different." "I mean as small as you?" Arrietty laughed. "Oh, don't be silly!" she said. "Surely you don't think there are many people in the world your size?" "There are more my size than yours," he retorted. "Honestly-" began Arrietty helplessly and laughed again. "Do you really think-I mean, whatever sort of a world would it be? Those great chairs . . . I've seen them. Fancy if you had to make chairs that size for everyone? And the stuff for their clothes . . . miles and miles of it . . . tents of it ... and the sewing! And their great houses, reaching up so you can hardly see the ceilings . . . their great beds ... the food they eat ... great, smoking mountains of it, huge bogs of stew and soup and stuff." "Don't you eat soup?" asked the boy. "Of course we do," laughed Arrietty. "My father had an uncle who had a little boat which he rowed round in the stock-pot picking up flotsam and jetsam. He did bottom-fishing too for bits of marrow until the cook got suspicious through finding bent pins in the soup. Once he was nearly shipwrecked on a chunk of submerged shinbone. He lost his oars and the boat sprang a leak but he flung a line over the pot handle and pulled himself alongside the rim. But all that stock-fathoms of it! And the size of the stockpot! I mean, there wouldn't be enough stuff in the world to go round after a bit! That's why my father says it's a good thing they're dying out . . . just a few, my father says, that's all we need-to keep us. Otherwise, he says, the whole thing gets"-Arrietty hesitated, trying to remember the word-"exaggerated, he says-" "What do you mean," asked the boy, " 'to keep us'?

You can't cure people of their character,' she read. After this he had crossed something out then gone on, 'You can't even change yourself. Experiments in that direction soon deteriorate into bitter, infuriated struggles. You haul yourself over the wall and glimpse new country. Good! You can never again be what you were! But even as you are congratulating yourself you discover tied to one leg the string of Christmas cards, gas bills, air letters and family snaps which will never allow you to be anyone else. A forty-year-old woman holds up a doll she has kept in a cardboard box under a bed since she was a child. She touches its clothes, which are falling to pieces; works tenderly its loose arm. The expression that trembles on the edge of realizing itself in the slackening muscles of her lips and jaw is indescribably sad. How are you to explain to her that she has lost nothing by living the intervening years of her life? How is she to explain that to you?

The imperative is to better oneself not through any intellectual or emotional growth, but through physical remaking. Such media encourage young girls to believe that good looks rather than good works are at the centre of the good life. What makes these messages particularly attractive to young women is that they constantly return to the language of empowerment and opportunity.

Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can’t win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll.

The women we become after children, she typed, then stopped to adjust the angle of the paper....We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair, We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, persoective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We live, We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror. We put our dry-clean-only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above.' We give up smoking, we color our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming-pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

I'll buy you a blow-up doll. I'm sure my mate won't mind when I explain how hard up you are." She didn't bother to punch him this time, just glared with promise of future retaliation. "Very funny. You wouldn't be laughing if you knew how sexually frustrated I am right now." [...] "The last time was when that SilverBlade sentinel was in town for a communications meeting." All amusement left Dorian's face. "You serious? That was months ago." A very long time to go without intimate touch. "Merce, that could get dangerous." "I know. Do you think I don't know?" She thrust her hands through her hair. "Damn it Dorian! It's getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder if some of the wolves would be good in bed. [...] "Cat and wolf isn't a ... um ... normal combination." "And Psy and cat is?" She made a face at him. "Yeah, yeah I know. Cat and wolf is strange." [...] "How about one of the Rats?" Dorian's eyes gleamed.

You told me once you thought you’d broken us. You didn’t break us, doll. You fixed us. Those bad minutes shaped us into what we are. They molded us into what we’re going to be together. We were written for one another, and I wouldn’t change one line in our romance novel. The good, the bad, the in-between. It’s ours. We own it.

Charlotte smiled. She collected rumors the way some girls liked to accumulate dolls, recording the juicier details into a small notebook she kept. (Rumors were the only commodity that Lowood had in spades.) If the rumor were good enough, perhaps she'd compose a story about it later, to tell to her sisters at bedtime. But the death of Mr. Brocklehurst was much better than mere gossip passed around by a gaggle of teenage girls. It was a genuine, bona fide mystery. The very best kind of story.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good luck pennies, and our lives.

I recommend you run fast, puto. Because I will find you and when I do, you can trust I won't make the same mistake again. You are as good as dead.

Hey. We good?" Christian asked. They were all watching me, even the creepy doll head. So I closed my eyes and said what I said best. Nothing.

I needed overall sincerity. I needed intimacy. I didn’t need a sex doll, no matter how good the sex was.

The mothers should know the correct sequence of embraces, kisses, and kind words to nurse their doll back to health. The love that awakens the spirit and heals an aching body.

Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds. Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world.

Not all doll-like creatures made good playthings. Some came alive in the middle of the night and killed you in your sleep.

I know this much—the world out there, Fancy, that world which is all around on the other side of the wall, it isn’t real. It’s real inside here, we’re real, but what is outside is like it’s made of cardboard, or plastic, or something. Nothing out there is real. Everything is made out of something else, and everything is made to look like something else, and it all comes apart in your hands. The people aren’t real, they’re nothing but endless copies of each other, all looking just alike, like paper dolls, and they live in houses full of artificial things and eat imitation food—” “My doll house,” Fancy said, amused. “Your dolls have little cakes and roasts made of wood and painted. Well, the people out there have cakes and bread and cookies made out of pretend flour, with all kinds of things taken out of it to make it prettier for them to eat, and all kinds of things put in to make it easier for them to eat, and they eat meat which has been cooked for them already so they won’t have to bother to do anything except heat it up and they read newspapers full of nonsense and lies and one day they hear that some truth is being kept from them for their own good and the next day they hear that the truth is being kept from them because it was really a lie

Adora changed her color scheme from peach to yellow. She promised me she'd take me to the fabric store so I can make new coverings to match. This dollhouse is my fancy." She almost made it sound natural, my fancy. The words floated out of her mouth sweet and round like butterscotch, murmured with just a tilt of her head, but the phrase was definitely my mother's. Her little doll, learning to speak just like Adora. "Looks like you do a very good job with it," I said, and motioned a weak wave good-bye. "Thank you," she said. Her eyes focused on my room in the dollhouse. A small finger poked the bed. "I hope you enjoy your stay here," she murmured into the room, as if she were addressing a tiny Camille no one could see.

You think I didn’t hate their pity, their forced kindness? And knowing that no matter what I did, how virtuous I was, or hardworking, I would never be beautiful. Not like her, the one who merely had to sit there to be adored. You wonder why I stabbed the blue eyes of my dolls with pins and pulled their hair out until they were bald? Life isn’t fair. Why should I be?

Pigpen walks around the table and as he nears Violet, she stumbles back, but he's faster. With one long step, he engulfs Violet in a hug and lifts her into the air. She slaps his shoulder, "Put me down, you fucking asshole." "She's back!" Pigpen rocks her like she's a doll and then gently deposits he back on the ground. He places his hands on either side of her face, looks into her eyes with that crazy-ass smile on his face, then kisses the top of her head. "It's good to have you back, kid." Violet smacks his hands off her face. "Get off me." He winks. "Love you, too.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

Because you took advantage of a sinner because you took advantage because you took because you took advantage of my disadvantage … “That’s good, you know. That’s damned good.” … when I stood Adam-naked before a federal law and all its stinging stars “Oh, grand stuff!” … Because you took advantage of a sin when I was helpless moulting moist and tender hoping for the best dreaming of marriage in a mountain state aye of a litter of Lolitas … “Didn’t get that.” Because you took advantage of my inner essential innocence because you cheated me— “A little repetitious, what? Where was I?” Because you cheated me of my redemption because you took her at the age when lads play with erector sets “Getting smutty, eh?” a little downy girl still wearing poppies still eating popcorn in the colored gloam where tawny Indians took paid croppers because you stole her from her wax-browed and dignified protector spitting into his heavy-lidded eye ripping his flavid toga and at dawn leaving the hog to roll upon his new discomfort the awfulness of love and violets remorse despair while you took a dull doll to pieces and threw its head away because of all you did because of all I did not you have to die

Ed Lim’s daughter, Monique, was a junior now, but as she’d grown up, he and his wife had noted with dismay that there were no dolls that looked like her. At ten, Monique had begun poring over a mail-order doll catalog as if it were a book–expensive dolls, with n ames and stories and historical outfits, absurdly detailed and even more absurdly expensive. ‘Jenny Cohen has this one,’ she’d told them, her finger tracing the outline of a blond doll that did indeed resemble Jenny Cohen: sweet faced with heavy bangs, slightly stocky. 'And they just made a new one with red hair. Her mom’s getting it for her sister Sarah for Hannukkah.’ Sarah Cohen had flaming red hair, the color of a penny in the summer sun. But there was no doll with black hair, let alone a face that looked anything like Monique’s. Ed Lim had gone to four different toy stores searching for a Chinese doll; he would have bought it for his daughter, whatever the price, but no such thing existed. He’d gone so far as to write to Mattel, asking them if there was a Chinese Barbie doll, and they’d replied that yes, they offered 'Oriental Barbie’ and sent him a pamphlet. He had looked at that pamphlet for a long time, at the Barbie’s strange mishmash of a costume, all red and gold satin and like nothing he’d ever seen on a Chinese or Japanese or Korean woman, at her waist-length black hair and slanted eyes. I am from Hong Kong, the pamphlet ran. It is in the Orient, or Far East. Throughout the Orient, people shop at outdoor marketplaces where goods such as fish, vegetables, silk, and spices are openly displayed. The year before, he and his wife and Monique had gone on a trip to Hong Kong, which struck him, mostly, as a pincushion of gleaming skyscrapers. In a giant, glassed-in shopping mall, he’d bought a dove-gray cashmere sweater that he wore under his suit jacket on chilly days. Come visit the Orient. I know you will find it exotic and interesting. In the end he’d thrown the pamphlet away. He’d heard, from friends with younger children, that the expensive doll line now had one Asian doll for sale – and a few black ones, too – but he’d never seen it. Monique was seventeen now, and had long outgrown dolls.

Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow. Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.

Oh, the world appears to work smoothly enough, like a toy town where the only business is the constant shifting of goods and wastes. If that were all, how easy to live - buy your food, put out the garbage. But the toys and models and dolls and the world's looks are treacherous. They teach children it will be easy. The real problem of consumption and disposal are nothing like what children are led to suspect.

If you love her, then you should make a go of things,” I tell him. He blanches. Shocked. “She lied to me.” “Sometimes we all lie to get what we want.” “You’re not mad?” “Oh, I am mad, but I’ll get over it, and hell…” I tease as I kick his foot. He flinches. “She could do a lot worse.” I mean, after all, her sister hooked up with Benny the psycho of all people. Marcus is one of the good guys. “Fuck.” Yeah. Fuck.

Neighbours bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbour. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good luck pennies, and our lives.

Good hair is wasted on men,” she continues, oblivious. “Like eyelashes. Why do you all have such long eyelashes? I pay fifty euro for my lash lift; meanwhile, you’re just walking around like some Victorian doll.

Hey, doll face…” “Haidyn?” I yank the phone from Kashton’s hands and look at the screen to see it’s a video. He’s sitting on my couch, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans. The phone is propped up against something on the coffee table. I place my hand over my mouth to hold in my sob at the sight of him. This was last night…when I saw my phone on the coffee table when he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my living room. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you goodbye. But in our life, we rarely get what we want.” A soft smile tugs at his lips. “You were my exception.” He bows his head, his right hand twirling his wedding ring around his finger as he looks at it. “I knew that you were too good for me the moment I first saw you. That I’d never live up to the man you’d deserve. So I let you go…but when you were placed back in my life, I couldn’t stop myself.” He looks back at the phone and gives a soft smile. Back in his life? “I’ve done a lot of unforgivable shit in my life, but the best thing I ever did was make you my wife. I wish I could have done it differently. You deserved so much more than what I gave you. I should have gotten down on one knee and begged you to spend the rest of your life with me. I should have told you how much you changed me. That you showed me what being alive truly felt like. I always felt like I was missing something…my life was boring. Same thing over and over. And then you walked into my life with that amazing smile and when I looked into your eyes—I saw a future that I never thought existed…not for a man like me, anyway.” A lump forms in my throat, and I blink to clear the tears from my eyes so I can see him on the screen. “I knew you’d never give a man like me the chance at forever. So I forced your hand. I had to have Adam help me.” I look up at Adam, and his green eyes are already on mine. Blinking the fresh tears away, I drop mine back to the phone. “Because I knew that’d be the only way I’d ever get you. And I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be your husband.” He looks away from the camera as if he can’t look at me, and my chest tightens. How dare he leave me this memory? Why break my heart twice? When I found him in the living room and asked if he regretted marrying me…he had just left me this video. He knew then exactly what he was going to do. His blue eyes come back to the screen, meeting mine once again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the forever you deserved, doll face. But I promise I gave you all I had left to offer.” The knot grows in my throat, and I can’t hold back the sob anymore as I remember what he said when I told him I chose to be with him forever. To some, forever is only a matter of seconds. “Please know that I loved you more than anything in this world…and when I walk out this door, I’m leaving a piece of myself behind with you because nothing short of forever would have been enough." He smiles, and I try to catch my breath. "You'll be safe at Carnage and my brothers will protect you." He leans forward and picks up the phone before speaking. "I love you, Charlotte.

In a way, he made me think of a doll, with brilliant glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him even more radiant than he was. "That's what you always wanted," he said softly. His tone was melancholy. "When you found me under Les Innocents, you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvet." "You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to emgrace and good to love." My tone was angry. We eyed each other for a moment. And then he surpised me, rising and coming towards me just as I moved to take him in my arms. His gesture wasn't tentative, but it was extremely gentle. We held each other tight for a moment. The cold embracing the cold. "I can't remember anything sad bweween us, " I said. "You will," he responded. "And so will I. But what does it matter what we remember?" "Yes," I said. "We're both still here.

Mrs. Linde: You said you were like a shipwrecked man clinging to some wreckage. Krogstad: I had good reason to say so. Mrs. Linde: Well, I am like a shipwrecked woman clinging to some wreckage--no one to mourn for, no one to care for.

He noticed Millie Boggs’s little plastic Jesus wedged between the back of his cab and the front of the camper shell. The baby Savior appeared to be looking directly at him and smiling. “You having yourself a good time?” Jesse shouted up at the doll.

The men and women of the Golden Age, Hesiod wrote, lived in an eternal spring, for hundreds of years, always youthful, fed on acorns from a great oak, on wild fruits, on honey. In the Silver Age, which is less written about, the people lived for 100 years as children, without growing up, and then quite suddenly aged and died. The Fabians and the social scientists, writers and teachers saw, in a way earlier generations had not, that children were people, with identities and desires and intelligences. They saw that they were neither dolls, nor toys, nor miniature adults. They saw, many of them, that children needed freedom, needed not only to learn, and be good, but to play and be wild. But they saw this, so many of them, out of a desire of their own for a perpetual childhood, a Silver Age.

The Little Ship Have your forgotten the ship love I made as a childish toy, When you were a little girl love, And I was a little boy?   Ah! never in all the fleet love Such a beautiful ship was seen, For the sides were painted blue love And the deck was yellow and green.   I carved a wonderful mast love From my Father’s Sunday stick, You cut up your one good dress love That the sail should be of silk.   And I launched it on the pond love And I called it after you, And for the want of the bottle of wine love We christened it with the dew.   And we put your doll on board love With a cargo of chocolate cream, But the little ship struck on a cork love And the doll went down with a scream!   It is forty years since then love And your hair is silver grey, And we sit in our old armchairs love And we watch our children play.   And I have a wooden leg love And the title of K. C. B. For bringing Her Majesty’s Fleet love Over the stormy sea.   But I’ve never forgotten the ship love I made as a childish toy When you were a little girl love And I was a sailor boy.

She will never make a good submissive. She's too dainty, and fucking easily bruised. Don't you think I've considered it? She's a trophy wife. I keep her like I would a bloody porcelain doll. Pretty to look at, and great for the portfolio that's all she will ever be good for.

that a woman with her sleeves tucked up above her elbows might know all about the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid Zone—that, in short, she might possess “education” and other good things ending in “tion,” and worthy to be pronounced emphatically, without being a useless doll.

Both you and I would have to be so changed that—. Oh, Torvald, I don't believe any longer in wonderful things happening. HELMER. But I will believe in it. Tell me? So changed that—? NORA. That our life together would be a real wedlock. Good-bye. (She goes out through the hall.)

She was still getting organized, trying to get the books she'd taken out to fit into the shelf under the stroller. She would shove a book in, and then something, a juice cup, a Binky, or one disturbing Barbie-doll head, would fall out the other side. She would shove that back in, and then something else would leak out the other side. Her stroller was like a poorly designed clown car. I went over and helped. It was a good thing spatial relations were a strength of mine, because it required the geometry skills of Newton to get everything slotted into place.

One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose---one novel like Asteroid Miners (or Valley of the Dolls, Flowers in the Attic, and The Bridges of Madison County, to name just a few) is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in.

Good morning," said the little prince. "Good morning," said the railway switchman. "What do you do here?" the little prince asked. "I sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand," said the switchman. "I send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left." And a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder. "They are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "What are they looking for?" "Not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman. And a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction. "Are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince. "These are not the same ones," said the switchman. "It is an exchange." "Were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince. "No one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman. And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express. "Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince. "They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes." "Only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry . . ." "They are lucky," the switchman said.

The mothers must narrate everything, impart wisdom, give their undivided attention, maintain eye contact at all times. When the dolls ask why, why, why, as toddlers are wont to do, the mothers must provide answers. Curiosity must be rewarded. “The dolls have an off switch,” Ms. Khoury says. “You do not.

California during the 1940s had Hollywood and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but on the other coast was Florida, land of sunshine and glamour, Miami and Miami Beach. If you weren't already near California's Pacific Coast you headed for Florida during the winter. One of the things which made Miami such a mix of glitter and sunshine was the plethora of movie stars who flocked there to play, rubbing shoulders with tycoons and gangsters. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the latter two. Miami and everything that surrounded it hadn't happened by accident. Carl Fisher had set out to make Miami Beach a playground destination during the 1930s and had succeeded far beyond his dreams. The promenade behind the Roney Plaza Hotel was a block-long lovers' lane of palm trees and promise that began rather than ended in the blue waters of the Atlantic. Florida was more than simply Miami and Miami Beach, however. When George Merrick opened the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables papers across the country couldn't wait to gush about the growing aura of Florida. They tore down Collins Bridge in the Gables and replaced it with the beautiful Venetian Causeway. You could plop down a fiver if you had one and take your best girl — or the girl you wanted to score with — for a gondola ride there before the depression, or so I'd been told. You see, I'd never actually been to Florida before the war, much less Miami. I was a newspaper reporter from Chicago before the war and had never even seen the ocean until I was flying over the Pacific for the Air Corp. There wasn't much time for admiring the waves when Japanese Zeroes were trying to shoot you out of the sky and bury you at the bottom of that deep blue sea. It was because of my friend Pete that I knew so much about Miami. Florida was his home, so when we both got leave in '42 I followed him to the warm waters of Miami to see what all the fuss was about. It would be easy to say that I skipped Chicago for Miami after the war ended because Pete and I were such good pals and I'd had such a great time there on leave. But in truth I decided to stay on in Miami because of Veronica Lake. I'd better explain that. Veronica Lake never knew she was the reason I came back with Pete to Miami after the war. But she had been there in '42 while Pete and I were enjoying the sand, sun, and the sweet kisses of more than a few love-starved girls desperate to remember what it felt like to have a man's arm around them — not to mention a few other sensations. Lake had been there promoting war bonds on Florida's first radio station, WQAM. It was a big outdoor event and Pete and I were among those listening with relish to Lake's sultry voice as she urged everyone to pitch-in for our boys overseas. We were in those dark early days of the war at the time, and the outcome was very much in question. Lake's appearance at the event was a morale booster for civilians and servicemen alike. She was standing behind a microphone that sat on a table draped in the American flag. I'd never seen a Hollywood star up-close and though I liked the movies as much as any other guy, I had always attributed most of what I saw on-screen to smoke and mirrors. I doubted I'd be impressed seeing a star off-screen. A girl was a girl, after all, and there were loads of real dolls in Miami, as I'd already discovered. Boy, was I wrong." - Where Flamingos Fly

You see this in the toy business. Some owners of hot toys want to put their hot toy name on everything. The result is that it becomes an enormous fad that is bound to collapse. When everybody has a Ninja turtle, nobody wants one anymore. The Ninja turtle is a good example of a fad that collapses in a hurry because the owner of the concept got greedy. The owner fans the fad rather than dampening it. On the other hand, the Barbie doll is a trend. When Barbie was invented years ago, the doll was never heavily merchandised into other areas. As a result, the Barbie doll has become a long-term trend in the toy business.

Poor March, in her good-will and her responsibility, she had strained herself till it seemed to her that the whole of life and everything was only a horrible abyss of nothingness. The more you reached after the fatal flower of happiness, which trembles so blue and lovely in a crevice just beyond your grasp, the more fearfully you became aware of the ghastly and awful gulf of the precipice below you, into which you will inevitably plunge, as into the bottomless pit, if you reach any farther. You pluck flower after flower--it is never the flower. The flower itself--its calyx is a horrible gulf, it is the bottomless pit.

I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete.

A pair of young mothers now became the centre of interest. They had risen from their lying-in much sooner than the doctors would otherwise have allowed. (French doctors are always very good about recognizing the importance of social events, and certainly in this case had the patients been forbidden the ball the might easily have fretted themselves to death.) One came as the Duchesse de Berri with l’Enfant du Miracle, and the other as Madame de Montespan and the Duc du Maine. The two husbands, the ghost of the Duc de Berri, a dagger sticking out of his evening dress, and Louis XIV, were rather embarrassed really by the horrible screams of their so very young heirs, and hurried to the bar together. The noise was indeed terrific, and Albertine said crossly that had she been consulted she would, in this case, have permitted and even encouraged the substitution of dolls. The infants were then dumped down to cry themselves to sleep among the coats on her bed, whence they were presently collected by their mothers’ monthly nannies. Nobody thereafter could feel quite sure that the noble families of Bregendir and Belestat were not hopelessly and for ever interchanged. As their initials and coronets were, unfortunately, the same, and their baby linen came from the same shop, it was impossible to identify the children for certain. The mothers were sent for, but the pleasures of society rediscovered having greatly befogged their maternal instincts, they were obliged to admit they had no idea which was which. With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that.

Ellie discovered that the whole set-up was the opposite of empowering. 'You are totally and utterly pleasing – that's the game, to be impressed by them. It's not necessarily the best-looking women who do the best, but it's about how much you can convince them that they have the power.' And although Ellie stopped lap dancing a couple of years ago, she hasn't shrugged off its impact. 'You get all this positive affirmation about your appearance, of a totally superficial nature,''she said, 'and in a way that feels good. But it's affirmation of something I already believed, that I am an object, and now I will probably always struggle to see myself sexually in any other way.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad. I

so fucking sure I’ll be able to accept that AF up there, however well you do her? It didn’t work with Sal, why will it work with Josie?’ ‘What we did with Sal is no comparison. We’ve been through this, Chrissie. What we made with Sal was a doll. A bereavement doll, nothing more. We’ve come a long, long way since then. What you have to understand is this. The new Josie won’t be an imitation. She really will be Josie. A continuation of Josie.’ ‘You want me to believe that? Do you believe that?’ ‘I do believe it. With everything I’m worth, I believe it. I’m glad Klara went in there and looked. We need her on board now, we’ve needed that for a long time. Because it’s Klara who’ll make the difference. Make it very, very different this time round. You have to keep faith, Chrissie. You can’t weaken now.’ ‘But will I believe in it? When the day comes. Will I really?’ ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’d like to say there’s a chance you’ll never need the new Josie. The present one may become healthy. I believe there’s a good chance

Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that Father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I should be shamed if I did not know better by now.

Marina noticed Sophie, and the worry on my daughter’s face vanished. “My sweet girl. Aren’t you a pretty ballerina?” She touched Sophie’s curls. Sophie held Marina’s hand like it was a fragile china doll. She ran her small brown fingers over the pale-pink nails and the soft knuckles, no doubt a wonder to Sophie, in comparison to Lila’s rough hands.

Although I like a good scary movie, I’ve never actually believed anything paranormal or supernatural could be real...until today. Magic genies, witch spells, and magic troll dolls with funky bright hair are other ideas that have crossed my mind. It also occurs to me that I may be going crazy, and will have to be committed before I finish high school.

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it.

Stevie herself believed that evil began in small acts of selfishness, banal cruelties in a normal day; their horror was that they were casual. To be casual with the lives of others was evil. This was an uncomfortable idea because it meant that everyone had the potential to influence the balance of good and evil on the earth. It demanded that we take individual responsibility.

I think the most difficult thing in teaching, as well as the most interesting, is to get the children to tell you their real thoughts about things. One stormy day last week I gathered them around me at dinner hour and tried to get them to talk to me just as if I were one of themselves. I asked them to tell me the things they most wanted. Some of the answers were commonplace enough... dolls, ponies, and skates. Others were decidedly original. Hester Boulter wanted 'to wear her Sunday dress every day and eat in the sitting room.' Hannah Bell wanted 'to be good without having to take any trouble about it.' Marjorie White, aged ten, wanted to be a 'widow'. Questioned why, she gravely said that if you weren't married people called you an old maid, and if you were your husband bossed you; but if you were a widow there'd be no danger of either. The most remarkable wish was Sally Bell's. She wanted a 'honeymoon.' I asked her if she knew what it was and she said she thought it was an extra nice kind of bicycle because her cousin in Montreal went on a honeymoon when he was married and he had always had the very latest in bicycles!

Jealousy can instigate the cruellest act, or more to the point, hatred can. Miss Bennett was the one who found Nathan lying at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar, said he must have slipped or something, especially with one leg being so much weaker than the other. They as good people never would have suspected their own daughter of pushing him. That she never showed emotion over her brother’s death was put down to trauma. I could see what they could not—a child incapable of any kind of feeling apart from selfishness. I can still picture him now, lying on his stomach, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes glazed like one of Rhiannon’s dolls. She was then about seven years old with the face of an angel and a nature as cruel as anyone on death row.

-Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever 'truer.' The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. -The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) -Symmetry demands an actual + virtualfuture, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. -Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future? -One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each 'shell' (the present) encased inside a nest of 'shells' (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of 'now' likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future. -Proposition: I am in love with Luisa Ray.

Why are you so mad at me?" Norris shouted back. The neighbors could definitely hear them now. His throat dry, but he didn't care. "I'm sorry if I interrupted one of your dates, or whatever, but I DID NOT DO ANYTHING! Ground me for leaving prom, ground me for drinking, but I didn't drive, I didn't have unprotected sex, I didn't even get high! You know that! You're supposed to be on my side here, Mom!" "NO!" she hurled back. "Not on this, Norris" I can't be!" "Why the hell not?!" "You know damn well! Trayvon Martin," she began. "Tamir Rice, Cameron Tillman, so many others that I can't remember all their names anymore!" Norris knew too well. It was almost a ritual, even back in Canada. They would sit as a family and watch quietly. "Be smart out there," Felix used to say. "You're not a handsome blue-eyed little Ken doll who's going to get a slap on the wrist every time he messes up. That, tonight?" she said, pointing to the door. "Do you know what that was? Do you?!" "I-" "That was a fucking coin flip, Norris. That was the coin landing heads." Her finger dug into his chest, punctuating every other word she was saying, spittle flying at his face. "Heads. A good one. Officer Miller, who has four sons, and luckily, mercifully, thank Jesus saw someone else's kid back-talking him tonight." She exhaled, her breath Thai-food hot against his face. "Tails." Her voice broke. "Tails, and I would be at the morgue right now identifying you! With some man lecturing me about our blood alcohol level and belligerent language and how you had it coming.

It's a fine day for a prayer. But then, most days are.' 'That's what you were doing? Praying?' At his nod, I asked, 'For what do you petition the gods?' He raised his brows. 'Petition?' 'Isn't that what prayer is? Begging the gods to give you what you want?' He laughed, his voice deep as a booming wind, but kinder. 'I suppose that is how some men pray. Not I. Not anymore.' 'What do you mean?' 'Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that Father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I should be shamed if I did not know better by now.' I eased my back into a more comfortable position against the railing. I suppose if you are used to the swaying of a ship, it might be restful. My muscles constantly fought against it, and I was beginning to ache in every limb. 'So. How does a man pray, then?' He looked on me with amusement, then levered himself down to sit beside me. 'Don't you know? How do you pray, then?' 'I don't.' And then I rethought, and laughed aloud. 'Unless I'm terrified. Then I suppose I pray as a child does. 'Get me out of this, and I'll never be so stupid again. Just let me live.' He laughed with me. 'Well, it looks as if, so far, your prayers have been granted. And have you kept your promise to the divine?' I shook my head, smiling ruefully. 'I'm afraid not. I just find a new direction to be foolish in.' 'Exactly. So do we all. Hence, I've learned I am not wise enough to ask the divine for anything.' 'So. How do you pray then, if you are not asking for something?' 'Ah. Well, prayer for me is more listening than asking. And, after all these years, I find I have but one prayer left. It has taken me a lifetime to find my prayer, and I think it is the same one that all men find, if they but ponder on it longer enough.

I reflect that the mitochondria that process energy from food to animate our tissues are inherited entirely from our mothers, passed down through millennia in an endless progression of nesting dolls along a matrilineal line. The mitochondria from the sperm essentially melt upon fertilization with an egg, while our mother’s mitochondria persist and create all the energy we need to do everything.

She hasn't cried once. SHe doesn't understand that Margaret is dead. At that age, they can't fully understand the concept of death. It's a good thing really. Jane fully understood the concept of death and she felt truly injured that Aunt Bess considered her unmoved. Jane thought it should be perfectly clear to everyone that rearranging the furniture in her dollhouse was her expression of grief. She had been moving the Mother Doll (it was a nuclear family of dolls that consisted of a mother, a father, a boy, and a girl) and all the Mother Doll's possessions into the dollhouse's attic. Jane wondered why tears were considered a superior form of grief to the rearrangement of one's dollhouse. Feeling terribly misunderstood, Jane began to cry. Oh listen, said Aunt Bess, she begins to understand.

And then I ride him like the good girl that I am. The girl who loves him. Who only wants to please him. To make things easier for him. To be exactly what he wants. What he needs. The girl who hopes that if I wedge myself into a doll, a dream, a marionette with lifeless eyes, porcelain skin, and no needs of my own, a doll who indulges his fantasies and guzzles his cum, maybe then he will love me too.

She’s Uncle Terry’s sissy.” That crooked grin appeared on his lips. It affected me as much now as it had then. “Yeah, I know who she is, doll.” He looked to me and the look on his face was pure affection. “I’ve known Hadley for a good long while.” My brain gave permission for my stomach to release more butterflies. I wanted to ask him to stop looking at me like that. No, affectionate glances were definitely not allowable.

He sank more and more into apathy; little interested him apart from dolls and other children’s toys. He still spoke occasionally, but mainly to produce stock sentences in the style of a brainwashed schoolboy. Franziska made a record of some of them: ‘I translated much’. ‘I lived in a good place called Naumburg’. ‘I swam in the Saale’. ‘I was very fine because I lived in a fine house’. ‘I love Bismarck’. ‘I don’t like Friedrich Nietzsche’. It would be a mercy to think that he experienced at least a kind of vegetative contentment, but this seems not to have been the case. He suffered from his life-long curse of insomnia, and visitors downstairs were often disturbed by groans and howls coming from the upstairs bedroom. Towards the end of Franziska recorded him uttering ‘More light!’ (Goethe’s dying words) and ‘In short, dead!’ suggesting that that is what he wanted to be.

My goodness, it's delightful to think of, Christine! Free from care! To be able to be free from care, quite free from care; to be able to play and romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have everything just as Torvald likes it! And, think of it, soon the spring will come and the big blue sky! Perhaps we shall be able to take a little trip--perhaps I shall see the sea again! Oh, it's a wonderful thing to be alive and be happy.

Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter be glad about—gettin' a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!" Pollyanna clapped her hands. "There is—there is," she crowed. "But I couldn't see it, either, Nancy, at first," she added, with quick honesty. "Father had to tell it to me." "Well, then, suppose YOU tell ME," almost snapped Nancy. "Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't—NEED—'EM!" exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. "You see it's just as easy—when you know how!" "Well,

fad is a wave in the ocean, and a trend is the tide. A fad gets a lot of hype, and a trend gets very little. Like a wave, a fad is very visible, but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible, but it’s very powerful over the long term. A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable, but a fad doesn’t last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks. (A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples: short skirts for women and double-breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.) When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dolls hit the market in 1983 and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth. Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage Patch Kids. By 1988 Coleco went into Chapter 11. Coleco died, but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro in 1989, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively. Today they’re doing quite well.

But no matter what my eyes report, there is beauty that lives under the skin, under the surface, under the standards set up for me by outside arbiters of what is good and true. Those arbiters are not always so reliable. They can be bought and sold. They can be marketed and manufactured. The real standards, the ones set forth by the One who made me, are solid, knitted into me at my beginning. This beauty is true and real, and it lives within the heart. It is my heart that must be trained to recognize this beauty.

No offense, doll, but that’s not something I’m willing to share. I’d prefer to live a long and happy life if it’s all the same to you.” “You can’t just throw out vague allegations and then say nothing else!” “See, that’s the good thing about being a fugitive like me. I can do what the hell I like, and I’m not answerable to anyone.” Stepping away from the bars, he stands with his legs stretched out wide. His stance matches his grin. “Sure looks like that’s working out well for you,” I say, piercing him with a scornful look.

He caught my hand and drew me closer to his side. “Well, should I begin to list them one by one, and by name? If I did it would take several hours. If there had been someone special, all I would do is name one—and I can’t do that. I liked them all . . . but I didn’t like any well enough to love, if that’s what you want to know.” Yes, that was exactly what I wanted to know. “I’m sure you didn’t live a celibate life, even though you didn’t fall in love . . . ?” “That’s none of your business,” he said lightly. “I think it is. It would give me peace to know you had a girl you loved.” “I do have a girl I love,” he answered. “I’ve known her all my life. When I go to sleep at night, I dream of her, dancing overhead, calling my name, kissing my cheek, screaming when she has nightmares, and I wake up to take the tar from her hair. There are times when I wake up to ache all over, as she aches all over, and I dream I kiss the marks the whip made . . . and I dream of a certain night when she and I went out on the cold slate roof and stared up at the sky, and she said the moon was the eye of God looking down and condemning us for what we were. So there, Cathy, is the girl who haunts me and rules me, and fills me with frustrations, and darkens all the hours I spend with other girls who just can’t live up to the standards she set. And I hope to God you’re satisfied.” I turned to move as in a dream, and in that dream I put my arms about him and stared up into his face, his beautiful face that haunted me too. “Don’t love me, Chris. Forget about me. Do as I do, take whomever knocks first on your door, and let her in.” He smiled ironically and put me quickly from him. “I did exactly what you did, Catherine Doll, the first who knocked on my door was let in—and now I can’t drive her out. But that’s my problem—not yours.” “I don’t deserve to be there. I’m not an angel, not a saint . . . you should know that.” “Angel, saint, Devil’s spawn, good or evil, you’ve got me pinned to the wall and labeled as yours until the day I die. And if you die first, then it won’t be long before I follow.

But what am I to do? Where am I to go?” “You must run away. Giller says not to go to your old wayward pine, they will find you there.” Rachel’s eyes got big when she heard this. “Go to a different wayward pine, then the next day, another, just keep running away and hiding until the winter comes. Then find some nice people who will take good care of you.” “All right, if Giller says so, that’s what I’ll do.” “Rachel, Giller wants you to know he loves you.” “I love Giller too,” Rachel said, “more than anything.” The doll smiled.

The dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets are strewn about everywhere. Posters, signs, billboards, and leaflets of various sorts are scattered around like playing cards, their bright words disarranged into nonsense. Countless other objects, devices, and leftover goods stock the room, more than one could possibly take notice of. But they are all, in some way, like those which have been described. One wonders, then, how they could add up to such an atmosphere of…isn’t repose the word? Yes, but a certain kind of repose: the repose of ruin.

I am a person of binges. I have never understood the phrase “too much of a good thing.” Look: it’s irrational, impossible. See fig. 1: when I was a child, I became obsessed with horses. I know, I know, all little girls are obsessed with horses. But I lived for them. I gorged on them. I begged for them in any incarnation: films, toys, patterns, photographs, posters. Once, I cut the hair off a Barbie and superglued it to the base of my spine. I thrilled to wear my pony tail under my clothes, in secret, my parents knowing nothing, thinking me merely human, but it rubbed off after two days, leaving long blond doll hairs clotting in the corners of the house. My birthday came, and my parents, who were still together then, splurged on an afternoon of horseback riding lessons. When it was time to leave, they found that I had knotted my hair into the horse’s mane so elaborately that they had to cut me away from it with a pair of rusted barn shears. I still have the clump of matted girl-and-horse hair hidden in a drawer, though after all the times I put it in my mouth, I admit that it is somewhat the worse for wear.

I like to watch Peter when he doesn’t know I’m looking. I like to admire the straight line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone. There’s an openness to his face, an innocence--a certain kind of niceness. It’s the niceness that touches my heart the most. It’s Friday night at Gabe Rivera’s house after the lacrosse game. Our school won, so everyone is in very fine spirits, Peter most of all, because he scored the winning shot. He’s across the room playing poker with some of the guys from his team; he is sitting with his chair tipped back, his back against the wall. His hair is still wet from showering after the game. I’m on the couch with my friends Lucas Krapf and Pammy Subkoff, and they’re flipping through the latest issue of Teen Vogue, debating whether or not Pammy should get bangs. “What do you think, Lara Jean?” Pammy asks, running her fingers through her carrot-colored hair. Pammy is a new friend--I’ve gotten to know her because she dates Peter’s good friend Darrell. She has a face like a doll, round as a cake pan, and freckles dust her face and shoulders like sprinkles. “Um, I think bangs are a very big commitment and not to be decided on a whim. Depending on how fast your hair grows, you could be growing them out for a year or more. But if you’re serious, I think you should wait till fall, because it’ll be summer before you know it, and bangs in the summer can be sort of sticky and sweaty and annoying…” My eyes drift back to Peter, and he looks up and sees me looking at him, and raises his eyebrows questioningly. I just smile and shake my head. “So don’t get bangs?” My phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter. Do you want to go? No. Then why were you staring at me? Because I felt like it.

At elegant dinners," wrote the French historian Imbert de Saint-Armand a hundred years later in MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY (1891), "a little guillotine is brought in with the dessert and takes the place of a sweet dish. A pretty woman places a doll representing some political adversary under the knife; it is decapitated in the neatest possible style, and out of it runs something red that smells good, a liqueur perfumed with ambergris, into which every lady hastens to dip her lace handkerchief. French gaiety would make a vaudeville out of the day of judgement.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard — and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings — and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on — lived to have six children more — to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features — so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief — at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities — her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid — by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinner; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character! — for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.

The last week of shooting, we did a scene in which I drag Amanda Wyss, the sexy, blond actress who played Tina, across the ceiling of her bedroom, a sequence that ultimately became one of the most visceral from the entire Nightmare franchise. Tina’s bedroom was constructed as a revolving set, and before Tina and Freddy did their dance of death, Wes did a few POV shots of Nick Corri (aka Rod) staring at the ceiling in disbelief, then we flipped the room, and the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor and Amanda and I went to work. As was almost always the case when Freddy was chasing after a nubile young girl possessed by her nightmare, Amanda was clad only in her baby-doll nightie. Wes had a creative camera angle planned that he wanted to try, a POV shot from between Amanda’s legs. Amanda, however, wasn’t in the cameramen’s union and wouldn’t legally be allowed to operate the cemera for the shot. Fortunately, Amy Haitkin, our director of photography’s wife, was our film’s focus puller and a gifted camera operator in her own right. Being a good sport, she peeled off her jeans and volunteered to stand in for Amanda. The makeup crew dapped some fake blood onto her thighs, she lay down on the ground, Jacques handed her the camera, I grabbed her ankles, and Wes called, “Action.” After I dragged Amy across the floor/ceiling, I spontaneously blew her a kiss with my blood-covered claw; the fake blood on my blades was viscous, so that when I blew her my kiss of death, the blood webbed between my blades formed a bubble, a happy cinematic accident. The image of her pale, slender, blood-covered legs, Freddy looming over her, straddling the supine adolescent girl, knife fingers dripping, was surreal, erotic, and made for one of the most sexually charged shots of the movie. Unfortunately it got left on the cutting-room floor. If Wes had left it in, the MPAA - who always seemed to have it out for Mr. Craven - would definitely have tagged us with an X rating. You win some, you lose some.

But what am I to do? Where am I to go?” “You must run away. Giller says not to go to your old wayward pine, they will find you there.” Rachel’s eyes got big when she heard this. “Go to a different wayward pine, then the next day, another, just keep running away and hiding until the winter comes. Then find some nice people who will take good care of you.” “All right, if Giller says so, that’s what I’ll do.” “Rachel, Giller wants you to know he loves you.” “I love Giller too,” Rachel said, “more than anything.” The doll smiled. All at once, the woods lit up with blue and yellow light. She looked up. Then came a sudden loud bang that made her jump. Her mouth dropped open; her eyes were wide as they would go.

Margaret Beale Spencer was hired as a consultant by CNN to re-create the doll tests for the modern age. This time, however, white children were tested as well as Black children. The tests showed that white children tended to identify the color of their own skin with more positive attributes and those with darker skins with more negative attributes. The researchers called this phenomenon “white bias.” The tests showed that the Black children were far less likely to respond with white bias. Dr. Spencer concluded, “All kids on the one hand are exposed to the stereotypes. What’s really significant here is that white children are learning or maintaining those stereotypes much more strongly than the African American children.

Of the Poet’s Youth" When the man behind the counter said, “You pay by the orifice,” what could we do but purchase them all? Ah, Sandy, vou were clearly the deluxe doll, modish and pert in your plastic nurse whites, official hostess to our halcyon days, where you bobbed in the doorway of our dishabille apartment, a block downwind from the stockyards. Holding court on the corroded balcony, K. and I passed hash brownies, collecting change for the building’s monthly pool to predict which balcony would fall off next. That’s when K. was fucking M. and M. was fucking J., and even B. and I threw down once on the glass-speckled lawn, adrift in the headlights of his El Camino. Those were immortal times, Sandy! Coke wasn’t addictive yet, condoms prevented herpes and men were only a form of practice for the Russian novel we foolishly hoped our lives would become. Now it’s a Friday night, sixteen years from there. Don’t the best characters know better than to live too long? My estranged husband house-sits for a spoiled cockatoo while saving to buy his own place. My lover’s gone back to his gin and the farm-team fiancée he keeps in New York. What else to do but read Frank O’Hara to my tired three-year-old? When I put him to bed, he mutters “more sorry” as he turns into sleep. Tonight, I find you in a box I once marked “The Past.” Well, therapy’s good for some things, Sandy, but who’d want to forgive a girl like that? Frank says Destroy yourself if you don’t know! Deflated, you’re simply the smile that surrounds a hole. I don’t know anything.

We came to the street light in the corner, and I wondered how many times Dill stood there hugging the fat pole, watching, waiting, hoping. I wondered how many times Jem and I had made this journey, but I entered the Radley front gate for the seecond time in my life. Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: w had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

What could I do but send him away? This is where men, even the trustiest, fail us. Their heart is never so wholly given to any matter but that some trifle of a meal, or a drink, or a sleep, or a joke, or a girl, may come in between them and it, and then (even if you are a queen) you’ll get no more good out of them till they’ve had their way. In those days I had not yet understood this. Great desolation came over me. ‘Everyone goes from me,’ I said. ‘None of them cares for Psyche. She lives at the very outskirts of their thoughts. She is less to them, far less, than Poobi is to me. They think of her a little and then get tired and go to something else, the Fox to his sleep, and Bardia to his doll or scold of a wife. You are alone, Orual. Whatever is to be done, you must devise and do it. No help will come. All gods and mortals have drawn

In Dream Street there are many theatrical hotels, and rooming houses, and restaurants, and speaks, including Good Time Charley's Gingham Shoppe, and in the summer time the characters I mention sit on the stoops or lean against the railings along Dream Street, and the gab you hear sometimes sounds very dreamy indeed. In fact, it sometimes sounds very pipe-dreamy. Many actors, male and female, and especially vaudeville actors, live in the hotels and rooming houses, and vaudeville actors, both male and female, are great hands for sitting around dreaming out loud about how they will practically assassinate the public in the Palace if ever they get a chance. Furthermore, in Dream Street are always many hand-bookies and horse players, who sit on the church steps on the cool side of Dream Street in the summer and dream about big killings on the races, and there are also nearly always many fight managers, and sometimes fighters, hanging out in front of the restaurants, picking their teeth and dreaming about winning championships of the world, although up to this time no champion of the world has yet come out of Dream Street. In this street you see burlesque dolls, and hoofers, and guys who write songs, and saxophone players, and newsboys, and newspaper scribes, and taxi drivers, and blind guys, and midgets, and blondes with Pomeranian pooches, or maybe French poodles, and guys with whiskers, and night-club entertainers, and I do not know what all else. And all of these characters are interesting to look at, and some of them are very interesting to talk to, although if you listen to several I know long enough, you may get the idea that they are somewhat daffy, especially the horse players.

I didn’t answer, occupied in dissolving the penicillin tablets in the vial of sterile water. I selected a glass barrel, fitted a needle, and pressed the tip through the rubber covering the mouth of the bottle. Holding it up to the light, I pulled back slowly on the plunger, watching the thick white liquid fill the barrel, checking for bubbles. Then pulling the needle free, I depressed the plunger slightly until a drop of liquid pearled from the point and rolled slowly down the length of the spike. “Roll onto your good side,” I said, turning to Jamie, “and pull up your shirt.” He eyed the needle in my hand with keen suspicion, but reluctantly obeyed. I surveyed the terrain with approval. “Your bottom hasn’t changed a bit in twenty years,” I remarked, admiring the muscular curves. “Neither has yours,” he replied courteously, “but I’m no insisting you expose it. Are ye suffering a sudden attack of lustfulness?” “Not just at present,” I said evenly, swabbing a patch of skin with a cloth soaked in brandy. “That’s a verra nice make of brandy,” he said, peering back over his shoulder, “but I’m more accustomed to apply it at the other end.” “It’s also the best source of alcohol available. Hold still now, and relax.” I jabbed deftly and pressed the plunger slowly in. “Ouch!” Jamie rubbed his posterior resentfully. “It’ll stop stinging in a minute.” I poured an inch of brandy into the cup. “Now you can have a bit to drink—a very little bit.” He drained the cup without comment, watching me roll up the collection of syringes. Finally he said, “I thought ye stuck pins in ill-wish dolls when ye meant to witch someone; not in the people themselves.” “It’s not a pin, it’s a hypodermic syringe.” “I dinna care what ye call it; it felt like a bloody horseshoe nail. Would ye care to tell me why jabbing pins in my arse is going to help my arm?” I took a deep breath. “Well, do you remember my once telling you about germs?” He looked quite blank. “Little beasts too small to see,” I elaborated. “They can get into your body through bad food or water, or through open wounds, and if they do, they can make you ill.” He stared at his arm with interest. “I’ve germs in my arm, have I?” “You very definitely have.” I tapped a finger on the small flat box. “The medicine I just shot into your backside kills germs, though. You get another shot every four hours ’til this time tomorrow, and then we’ll see how you’re doing.” I paused. Jamie was staring at me, shaking his head. “Do you understand?” I asked. He nodded slowly. “Aye, I do. I should ha’ let them burn ye, twenty years ago.

In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2–3 per cent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8 per cent of rest-time energy. Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can’t win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll. Today our big brains pay off nicely, because we can produce cars and guns that enable us to move much faster than chimps, and shoot them from a safe distance instead of wrestling.

At the beginning of the twentieth century we understood the workings of nature on the scales of classical physics that are good down to about a hundredth of a millimetre. The work on atomic physics in the first thirty years of the century took our understanding down to lengths of a millionth of a millimetre. Since then, research on nuclear and high-energy physics has taken us to length scales that are smaller by a further factor of a billion. It might seem that we could go on forever discovering structures on smaller and smaller length scales. However, there is a limit to this series as with a series of nested Russian dolls. Eventually one gets down to a smallest doll, which can’t be taken apart any more. In physics the smallest doll is called the Planck length and is a millimetre divided by a 100,000 billion billion billion. We are not about to build particle accelerators that can probe to distances that small.

I was a young girl, a virgin, and therefore men denied me rationality just as they denied it to all those who were not exactly like themselves, in all their unreason. If I could see not one single soul in that wilderness of desolation all around me, then the six of us-mounts and riders both-could boast amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things when the good Lord opened the gates of Eden and let Eve and her familiars tumble out. Understand, then, that though I would not say I privately engaged in metaphysical speculation as we rode through the reedy approaches to the river, I certainly meditated on the nature of my own state, how I had been bought and sold, passed from hand to hand. That clockwork girl who powdered my cheeks for me; had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-maker had given her?

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. Humans' "superior" Theory of Mind is in part pathology. The oft repeated line "humans are rational beings" is probably our most half-true assertion about ourselves. There is in nature an overriding sanity and often in humankind an undermining insanity. We, among all animals, are most frequently irrational, distortional, delusional, and worried. Yet, I also wonder, is our pathological ability to generate false beliefs...also the very root of human creativity?

I feel so far away from them, on the top of this hill. It seems as though I belong to another species. They come out of their offices after their day of work, they look at the houses and the squares with satisfaction, they think it is their city, a good, solid, bourgeois city. They aren’t afraid, they feel at home. All they have ever seen is trained water running from taps, light which fills bulbs when you turn on the switch, half-breed, bastard trees held up with crutches. They have proof, a hundred times a day, that everything happens mechanically, that the world obeys fixed, unchangeable laws. In a vacuum all bodies fall at the same rate of speed, the public park is closed at 4 p.m. in winter, at 6 p.m. in summer, lead melts at 335 degrees centigrade, the last streetcar leaves the Hotel de Ville at 11.05 p.m. They are peaceful, a little morose, they think about Tomorrow, that is to say, simply, a new today; cities have only one day at their disposal and every morning it comes back exactly the same. They scarcely doll it up a bit on Sundays. Idiots. It is repugnant to me to think that I am going to see their thick, self-satisfied faces. They make laws, they write popular novels, they get married, they are fools enough to have children. And all this time, great, vague nature has slipped into their city, it has infiltrated everywhere, in their house, in their office, in themselves. It doesn’t move, it stays quietly and they are full of it inside, they breathe it, and they don’t see it, they imagine it to be outside, twenty miles from the city. I see it, I see this nature . . . I know that its obedience is idleness, I know it has no laws: what they take for constancy is only habit and it can change tomorrow. What if something were to happen? What if something suddenly started throbbing? Then they would notice it was there and they’d think their hearts were going to burst. Then what good would their dykes, bulwarks, power houses, furnaces and pile drivers be to them? It can happen any time, perhaps right now: the omens are present.

Matthews quietly stood by the closed door, watching the patient. Her dramatic eyes darted back and forth as they stared through nothingness, lost in thought. His gaze shifted to her blazing locks, which elegantly fell upon her bare shoulders. Her skin was a pure porcelain that reminded him of his mother’s doll collection. Bridget’s petite frame and angelic complexion were stunning, and in another world, Matthews would have allowed himself to fall for her at first sight. He imagined seeing her in a bookstore with a specialty coffee in one hand and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in another. She would push her frames up her nose with her index finger before flipping the page and sipping her latte. Matthews, free of his work uniform, would sit in a chair across from her with his copy of The Metamorphosis. The young man would steal glances at her from behind his novel as he worked up the courage to speak to her. She would smile coyly when she caught him peeking, and when they finally made eye contact, he would strike up a conversation. Then he would take her to dinner, and everything else would fall into place.

We got some stupid fuckers,” Kauzlarich said after the inflatable doll had been tossed into a burn barrel and set on fire, which created a thick column of oily black smoke that rose over the center of the FOB. “We got what we got,” Cummings said—and what he and Kauzlarich were wondering was whether these first cracks were just the effects of war, or also the effects of an army forced to take more and more stupid fuckers. It was something they had been dealing with since they began forming the battalion. For several years, in order to meet recruiting goals, the army had been accepting an ever-increasing number of recruits who needed some kind of waiver in order to become soldiers. Without the waivers, those recruits would not have been allowed into the army. Some of the waivers were for medical problems and others were for low scores on aptitude tests, but the greatest percentage were for criminal offenses ranging from misdemeanor drug use to felonies such as burglary, theft, aggravated assault, and even a few cases of involuntary manslaughter. In 2006, the year the 2-16 was getting most of its soldiers, 15 percent of the army’s recruits were given criminal waivers. Most were for misdemeanors, but nearly a thousand were for some type of felony conviction, which was more than double the number granted just three years before. This

We turned off the path then, following a line of red, cup-shaped wildflowers that I had not seen before. And then abruptly, we came to a door-- an actual door, because the Folk are maddeningly inconsistent, even when it comes to their inconsistencies--- tucked into a little hollow. It was only about two feet tall and painted to look like the mountainside, a scene of grey-brown scree with a few splashes of green, so realistic that it was like a reflection on still water. The only thing that gave it away was the doorknob, which looked like nothing that I can put into human terms; the best I can do is compare it to a billow of fog trapped in a shard of ice. "It has the look of a brownie house," Wendell said. "But perhaps I should make sure." He shoved the door open and vanished into the shadows within--- I cannot relate how he accomplished this; it seemed for a moment as if the door grew to fit him, but I was unable to get a handle on the mechanics as not one second later he was racing out again and the door had shrunk to its old proportions. Several porcelain cups and saucers followed in his wake, about the right size for a doll, and one made contact, smashing against his shoulder. Behind the hail of pottery came a little faerie who barely came up to my knee, wrapped so tightly in what looked like a bathrobe made of snow that I could see only its enormous black eyes. Upon its head it wore a white sleeping cap. It was brandishing a frying pan and shouting something--- I think--- but its voice was so small that I could only pick out the odd word. It was some dialect of Faie that I could not understand, but as the largest difference between High Faie and the faerie dialects lies in the profanities, the sentiment was clear. "Good Lord!" Rose said, leaping out of range of the onslaught. "I don't--- what on--- would you stop?" Wendell cried, shielding himself with his arm. "Yes, all right, I should have knocked, but is this really necessary?" The faerie kept on shrieking, and then it launched the frying pan at Wendell's head--- he ducked--- and slammed its door. Rose and I stared at each other. Ariadne looked blankly from Wendell to the door, clutching her scarf with both hands. "Bloody Winter Folk," Wendell said, brushing ceramic shards from his cloak. "Winter Folk?" I repeated. "Guardians of the seasons--- or anyway, that is how they see themselves," he said sourly. "Really I think they just want a romantic excuse to go about blasting people with frost and zephyrs and such. It seems I woke him earlier than he desired." I had never heard of such a categorization, but as I was somewhat numb with surprise, I filed the information away rather than questioning him further. I fear that working with one of the Folk is slowly turning my mind into an attic of half-forgotten scholarly treasures.

The summer of 1999, we went on holiday to Spain to visit my cousin Penny, who runs a horse farm in Andalucia. It is a beautiful, wild part of the country. Shara would ride out early each day in the hilly pine forests and along the miles of huge, deserted Atlantic beaches. I was told I was too tall for the small Andalucian ponies. But I didn’t want to be deterred. Instead I ran alongside Shara and tried to keep up with the horse. (Good training, that one.) Eventually, on the Monday morning we were to leave, I took her down to the beach and persuaded her to come skinny-dipping with me. She agreed. (With some more eye-rolling.) As we started to get out after swimming for some time, I pulled her toward me, held her in my arms, and prepared to ask for her hand in marriage. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and as I was about to open my mouth, a huge Atlantic roller pounded in, picked us both up, and rolled us like rag dolls along the beach. Laughing, I went for take two. She still had no idea what was coming. Finally, I got the words out. She didn’t believe me. She made me kneel on the sand (naked) and ask her again. She laughed--then burst into tears and said yes. (Ironically, on our return, Brian, Shara’s father, also burst into tears when I asked him for his blessing. For that one, though, I was dressed in a jacket, tie, and…board shorts.) I was unsure whether his were tears of joy or despair. What really mattered was that Shara and I were going to get married.

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops. When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by. As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop. I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs" Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.

Which of you’s real?” Nick asked. “The one limping, silly.” Simi flashed in beside Nick and leaned against his shoulder. “Can’t you tell the difference between the cute Malphas and the fugly fake one?” Not really. If Caleb wasn’t limping and bleeding, he’d have no clue. Nick frowned at her. “What’s going on?” With her bright purple hair, which matched the color of her lipstick, pulled into pigtails, Simi let out an adorable sound that defied description. “Them nasty demons done found you. Kind of. See, there’s a big bounty on your head—” She brushed her hand over his hair to emphasize her words. “—and if some mean nasty can find you and bring you in to have your brains eaten by their overlord, they get freed. So win–win. Well, not for you ’cause it would probably hurt to have your brains eaten. Though the Simi is pretty sure they’d kill you first.” She paused to think about that with a strangely cute expression. “Then again, some don’t, ’cause they like the sound of screams on the way down. I wonder if brains scream on their own.… Hmm. The Simi sees an expulsion coming on. Not ex…” “Periment?” “That’s the word.” Smiling, she touched him on the tip of his nose. “Experiment. Thank you, akri-Nicky. Good of you to use your brains while you still have some. The Simi’s so proud for you.” “You’re not helping my panic, Simi.” “Oh.” She grinned at him. “Sorry. The Simi will be silent. Until it’s not time to be silent anymore. Silent. I likes that word. Ever notice some words are just pretty to say?” She beamed like a beautiful doll. “Silent Simi.” Her face fell as she touched her forefinger to her lower lip and pouted. “Oh, wait, no. The Simi don’t like the way that sounds at all. Blah! A silent Simi is not a good thing.

He nodded against my neck and his hands came around to cup my breasts, grinding into me again from behind. I ground back. He moaned, slipping a hand down the front of my panties. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered against my ear, moving against me. Oh my fucking God… What didn’t I like? It had been so long and I was so deprived I was afraid he was going to finish me right there. My body began to tremble at the build. I couldn’t take it anymore. He seemed to sense it because he pulled his fingers back right before I disintegrated in his hand, and he laid me down on the bed, sliding over me. He hovered on his forearms and ran a thick, muscular thigh up between my legs until it hit my core and I sucked in air against his lips. Oh my God, he was so good at this… And he fucking knew it. He smiled and kissed me, his tongue darting in my mouth, his rough hands canvassing my skin like he wanted to feel every inch of me. I did the same. It felt so good to touch him. My eyes had spent so much time learning his body, and my hands wanted to map him. I ran fingers along his chest, over the curve of his broad freckled shoulders, down the muscles of his back, along the valley of his spine. I breathed in his scent as I grabbed his firm ass and pulled him into me and he groaned, rubbing hard against my leg. I couldn’t believe this was real, that I got to touch him, that he was kissing me, that there was nothing between us but my thin G-string. His bare skin pressing into mine was the most exquisite feeling of my life, a million nerve endings connecting with his, little electrical shocks that merged into one huge surge. He sat up and kneeled between my legs, picking up my foot and putting it on his shoulder. The view was fucking spectacular. The definition of his chest continued down with a line of hair into a V muscle that pointed at his divine penis like an arrow. I reached out and took him in my hand and his breathing went ragged. My gaze came back up to his hooded eyes. He kissed my ankle and I watched him do it, biting my lip, stroking him, my need unraveling into something so starved I wanted to beg him to have mercy on me and just fuck me already. I thought of the way he’d touched me in the car, his strong hands massaging my calf, and I couldn’t help but feel like he was continuing something he started earlier. He ran his palms from my ankle, behind my knee, up my thigh, and he hooked my panties in his thumbs and pulled them down and off. Then he balled them in his hand, shut his eyes, and put them to his nose, breathing in. When his eyes opened again, they’d gone primal. He came at me like a wild animal. He lowered onto me, his jaw clenched tight, every muscle of his body tense, and I lifted my hips. He held my gaze as he eased himself in, slow and deliberate, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, feral with need, frantically urging him deeper. One… Two… I wasn’t going to last a minute and it was all overload, his naked body pressed to mine, the feel of him inside me, rhythmically thrusting against my core, deeper and deeper, his quivering breath over my collarbone, his hips grinding between my legs, his scent, his sounds, the heat of his skin, the rocking of the bed, the moaning in my throat—my back arched and I fell apart at the same time he did, clutching at everything, pulling him into me, pulsing with his release. He collapsed on top of me and I was decimated. I lay there like a rag doll, twitching with aftershocks. He gasped for breath, his face by my ear. “Holy…fucking…shit,” he panted. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak. I’d never had sex that good. Never in my life—and I’d had my share of good sex. It was like we’d been foreplaying for weeks and I’d been sexually malnourished, starving, waiting for him to feed me.

Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction - in short, belief - grows ever “truer.” The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent. The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to “landscape” the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up - a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone. Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows - the actual past - from another such simulacrum - the actual future? One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of “shells” (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of “now” likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future. Proposition: I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey.

Like A Rolling Stone" Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall" You thought they were all kiddin' you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel? How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely But you know you only used to get juiced in it And nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street And now you're gonna have to get used to it You said you'd never compromise With the mystery tramp, but now you realize He's not selling any alibis As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And say do you want to make a deal? How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home A complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns When they all did tricks for you You never understood that it ain't no good You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain't it hard when you discover that He really wasn't where it's at After he took from you everything he could steal How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made Exchanging all precious gifts But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Like A Rolling Stone" Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall" You thought they were all kiddin' you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel? How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely But you know you only used to get juiced in it And nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street And now you're gonna have to get used to it You said you'd never compromise With the mystery tramp, but now you realize He's not selling any alibis As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And say do you want to make a deal? How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home A complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns When they all did tricks for you You never understood that it ain't no good You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain't it hard when you discover that He really wasn't where it's at After he took from you everything he could steal How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made Exchanging all precious gifts But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

I hold my breath while he hooks his hands under my thighs. When he resumes, it's faster, harder, and a whole new level of euphoria. I press my eyes shut just as they start to roll back. That spot. That elusive spot every man had such a hard time locating is front and center now. I silently dub him the G-spot whisperer. Another deep thrust hits it again. Good thing I'm not trying to speak anymore, because I've lost all my words. All I have to offer are huffs of hot air and whimpering. Lots and lots of whimpering. The edge of Callum's mouth turns up, and I have to swallow to keep from choking at the divine sight. He looks like a god in this moment. His skin is a golden glow, painted in specks of sweat, highlighting every single cut muscle he possesses. And his expression---a cross between concentration and satisfaction. It's hard physical work he's doing, but he relishes it. I can tell by the glimmer in his eyes, the way his hands cradle my legs so I'm comfortably supported. I can tell by the pinch of his jaw, those soft grunts he let loose, that this is blowing his mind too. For the second time in one night, pressure builds inside me. The feeling is almost too much, but all I want is more. These long, deliberate thrusts are the greatest physical sensations my body has ever experienced. I could explode at any moment, but I want this to last. Forever, if possible. Arching my back, I press my head against the pillow. I cry out, sounding like a rabid banshee. A muttered curse falls from his lips. "That's it. Don't hold back." Pressure and heat collide, and I couldn't hold back if I tried. The deep thrusts keep coming like an endless loop of crashing waves. Callum and my G-spot are new best friends, it seems. Over and over, he hits it. Over and over, the sensations build to an overwhelming peak. His pace shifts from impressive to phenomenal. If Callum were a sex doll, I'd buy a dozen. His stamina, his technique, his adoration of me and my body, it's all perfection. When I burst, I'm even louder than before. And just like before, I'm ablaze from the inside out. Ecstasy pulses through every inch of skin and bone. My blood pumps hot, like lava flowing through my veins. Every muscle tightens, then loosens. Panting, I clutch Callum's forearms and watch his face as he hits his own peak.

That the life of Man is but a dream has been sensed by many a one, and I too am never free of the feeling. When I consider the restrictions that are placed on the active, inquiring energies of Man; when I see that all our efforts have no other result than to satisfy needs which in turn serve no purpose but to prolong our wretched existence, and then see that all our reassurance concerning the particular questions we probe is no more than dreamy resignation, since all we are doing is to paint our prison walls with colourful figures and bright views – all of this, Wilhelm, leaves me silent. I withdraw into myself, and discover a world, albeit a notional world of dark desire rather than one of actuality and vital strength. And everything swims before my senses, and I go my way in the world wearing the smile of the dreamer. All our learned teachers and educators are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod. And yet it seems palpably clear to me. I gladly confess, since I know the reply you would want to make, that they are the happiest who, like children, live for the present moment, drag their dolls around and dress and undress them, and watchfully steal by the drawer where Mama has locked away the cake, and, when at last they get their hands on what they want, devour it with their cheeks crammed full and cry, ‘More!’ – They are happy creatures. And those others, who give pompous titles to their beggarly pursuits and even to their passions, and chalk them up as vast enterprises for the good and well-being of mankind, they too are happy. – It is all very well for those who can be like that! But he who humbly perceives where it is all leading, who sees how prettily the happy man makes an Eden of his garden, and how even the unhappy man goes willingly on his weary way, panting beneath his burden, and that all are equally interested in seeing the light of the sun for one minute more – he indeed will be silent, and will create a world from within for himself, and be happy because he is a man. And then, confined as he may be, he none the less still preserves in his heart the sweet sensation of freedom, and the knowledge he can quit this prison whenever he wishes.

If it were any of the other Sharpes, he wouldn’t balk. But the idea of spending serveral hours in her company was both intoxicating and terrifying. “If you don’t let me go along,” she continued, “I’ll just follow you. He scowled at her. She probably would; the woman was as stubborn as she was beautiful. “And don’t think you can outride me, either,” she added. “Halstead Hall has a very good stable, and lady Bell is one of our swiftest mounts.” “Lady Bell?” he said sarcastically. “Not Crack Shot or Pistol?” She glared over at him. “Lady Bell was my favorite doll when I was a girl, the last one Mama gave me before she died. I used to play with it whenever I wanted to remember her. The doll got so ragged that I threw her away when I outgrew her.” Her voice lowered. “I regretted that later, but by then it was too late.” The idea of her playing with a doll to remember her late mother made his throat tighten and his heart falter. “Fine,” he bit out. “You can go with me to High Wycombe.” Surprise turned her cheeks rosy. “Oh, thank you, Jackson! You won’t regret it, I promise you!” “I already regret it,” he grumbled. “And you must do as I say. None of your going off half-cocked, do you hear?” “I never go off half-cocked!” “No, you just walk around with a pistol packed full of powder, thinking you can hold men at bay with it.” She tossed her head. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?” “Not as long as we both shall live.” The minute the words left his lips, he could have kicked himself. They sounded too much like a vow, one he’d give anything for the right to make. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have noticed. Instead, she was squirming and shimmying about on her saddle. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I’ve got a burr caught in my stocking that keeps rubbing against my leg. I’m just trying to work it out. Don’t mind me.” His mouth went dry at her mention of stockings. It brought yesterday’s encounter vividly into his mind, how he’d lifted her skirts to reach the smooth expanse of calf encased in silk. How he’d run his hands up her thighs as his mouth had tasted- God save him. He couldn’t be thinking about such things while riding. He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle as they reached the road and settled into a comfortable pace. The road was busy at this early hour. The local farmers were driving their carts to market or town, and laborers were headed for the fields. To Jackson’s relief, that made it easy not to talk. Conversaing with her was bound to be difficult, especially if she started consulting him about her suitors.

I wish I understood it,” she said. “It’s okay,” I said. “Nobody gets anybody else, not really. We’re all stuck inside ourselves.” “You just, like, hate yourself? You hate being yourself?” “There’s no self to hate. It’s like, when I look into myself, there’s no actual me—just a bunch of thoughts and behaviors and circumstances. And a lot of them just don’t feel like they’re mine. They’re not things I want to think or do or whatever. And when I look for the, like, Real Me, I never find it. It’s like those nesting dolls, you know? The ones that are hollow, and then when you open them up, there’s a smaller doll inside, and you keep opening hollow dolls until eventually you get to the smallest one, and it’s solid all the way through. But with me, I don’t think there is one that’s solid. They just keep getting smaller.” “That reminds me of a story my mom tells,” Daisy said. “What story?” I could hear her teeth chattering when she talked but neither of us wanted to stop looking up at the latticed sky. “Okay, so there’s this scientist, and he’s giving a lecture to a huge audience about the history of the earth, and he explains that the earth was formed billions of years ago from a cloud of cosmic dust, and then for a while the earth was very hot, but then it cooled enough for oceans to form. And single-celled life emerged in the oceans, and then over billions of years, life got more abundant and complex, until two hundred fifty thousand or so years ago, humans evolved, and we started using more advanced tools, and then eventually built spaceships and everything. “So he gives this whole presentation about the history of earth and life on it, and then at the end, he asks if there are any questions. An old woman in the back raises her hand, and says, ‘That’s all fine and good, Mr. Scientist, but the truth is, the earth is a flat plane resting on the back of a giant turtle.’ “The scientist decides to have a bit of fun with the woman and responds, ‘Well, but if that’s so, what is the giant turtle standing upon?’ “And the woman says, ‘It is standing upon the shell of another giant turtle.’ “And now the scientist is frustrated, and he says, ‘Well, then what is that turtle standing upon?’ “And the old woman says, ‘Sir, you don’t understand. It’s turtles all the way down.’” I laughed. “It’s turtles all the way down.” “It’s turtles all the way fucking down, Holmesy. You’re trying to find the turtle at the bottom of the pile, but that’s not how it works.” “Because it’s turtles all the way down,” I said again, feeling something akin to a spiritual revelation.

Mazel Amsel- I have the obsession of destroying Nevaeh, she is so perfect, I cannot stand it! My girls have to be on top, and I am never going to let her be anything, I will make sure of it! That is what I have been doing for years. Nevaeh that no good little pussy licker; even if she knows it is me, she will not be able to ‘Prove it.’ I am just that well-liked by everyone, I am so powerful that no one will ever defeat me. I am the master manipulator, Nevaeh- yes, she is the tower! She is about for a hundred pounds, unnatural blond hair, lime green glowing eyes, and a voice that bellows! To me, she looks like a bulldog in the face, yet evil wicked witch-like also, yet to everyone else she blends in, to the others she looks as they do, just a normal mom, with normal kids. Yet I think she is crumbling, I think some people are seeing through her veil, because of what happened recently. Mazel- I have everyone wrapped around my little finger. Likewise, if they do not bow down to me, I will make their life a living hell. That is the way; I have to have it, all the time for Nevaeh! I have to know what she is doing at all times. I have to hack into her social networking and get her pears to think she is a ‘Creep’ and ‘Stocker’ to young girls. So, she has no friends at all. So, my girls can be the supreme of this area, so that they can do as they please, without anyone stopping them from being the best, no matter what, and from getting what they want, and what I want for them. Besides, foremost I wanted to make sure that she would never date anyone. So, I came up with the story of telling everyone that she was into girls and that she is just plain crazy. I should know my eyes are on her always. I did not want to see her go to proms; I did not want to see her succeed. I did not want her to be loved. I would like to see her die, and not walk away from it. I have dreamed of ways to kill her repeatedly. Like this one, I would like to see her be impaled on a sharp wooden stick, starting through her butt hole, and then slowly have gravity have it go up into her delicious miniature body until it hits her brain, and she screams out my girl’s names, as we get what we need. I would love to see a Nevaeh- kabob! I would love to see her stoned out in the open with rocks! I would love to see my girls bite their nipples off with their teeth! I want to see my girl claw her up to head to toe. I hunger to see them scratch her sweet blue eyes that are so heavenly right out of her face! I want to see her gush that cobalt blood like a waterfall from her naked sliced-up body. Yes, I want us to torture her any way we can until she says yes to us. We are going to get at anything of hers we can until she comes with us! As we would, all dance around her, as we would light her up, cheerfully for the last time. How I would love to bleach and fry that perfect hair with chemicals. I and we all in our family want to fuck her up and down anyways we can! Mwah Ha, ha! Yes, Beforehand, we all would kiss, touch, lick, and stick her, and do what we want to get the life from her by sucking away. We would eat her soul away as it would come down from the heavens then through her body, and into ours, as we would drink it out, the way we do. Yes, yes, hell- yes, I can see it now! Yes, I want her soul! Besides, anything or everything I can get out of her to add to my shrine. We even have a voodoo doll of her with pins in it. I have a few things of hers like her hymen-damaged red blood tarnished pink polka-dotted gym underwear, and her indigo pantiliner she had on. That my girl ripped off of her in school, the more things we have the more we can control her mind, but I want more!

Father will bury us with both hands. He boasts of me to his so-called friends, telling them I’m the next queen of this kingdom. I don’t think he’s ever paid so much attention to me before, and even now, it is minuscule, not for my own benefit. He pretends to love me now because of another, because of Tibe. Only when someone else sees worth in me does he condescend to do the same. Because of her father, she dreamed of a Queenstrial she did not win, of being cast aside and returned to the old estate. Once there, she was made to sleep in the family tomb, beside the still, bare body of her uncle. When the corpse twitched, hands reaching for her throat, she would wake, drenched in sweat, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Julian and Sara think me weak, fragile, a porcelain doll who will shatter if touched, she wrote. Worst of all, I’m beginning to believe them. Am I really so frail? So useless? Surely I can be of some help somehow, if Julian would only ask? Are Jessamine’s lessons the best I can do? What am I becoming in this place? I doubt I even remember how to replace a lightbulb. I am not someone I recognize. Is this what growing up means? Because of Julian, she dreamed of being in a beautiful room. But every door was locked, every window shut, with nothing and no one to keep her company. Not even books. Nothing to upset her. And always, the room would become a birdcage with gilded bars. It would shrink and shrink until it cut her skin, waking her up. I am not the monster the gossips think me to be. I’ve done nothing, manipulated no one. I haven’t even attempted to use my ability in months, since Julian has no more time to teach me. But they don’t believe that. I see how they look at me, even the whispers of House Merandus. Even Elara. I have not heard her in my head since the banquet, when her sneers drove me to Tibe. Perhaps that taught her better than to meddle. Or maybe she is afraid of looking into my eyes and hearing my voice, as if I’m some kind of match for her razored whispers. I am not, of course. I am hopelessly undefended against people like her. Perhaps I should thank whoever started the rumor. It keeps predators like her from making me prey. Because of Elara, she dreamed of ice-blue eyes following her every move, watching as she donned a crown. People bowed under her gaze and sneered when she turned away, plotting against their newly made queen. They feared her and hated her in equal measure, each one a wolf waiting for her to be revealed as a lamb. She sang in the dream, a wordless song that did nothing but double their bloodlust. Sometimes they killed her, sometimes they ignored her, sometimes they put her in a cell. All three wrenched her from sleep. Today Tibe said he loves me, that he wants to marry me. I do not believe him. Why would he want such a thing? I am no one of consequence. No great beauty or intellect, no strength or power to aid his reign. I bring nothing to him but worry and weight. He needs someone strong at his side, a person who laughs at the gossips and overcomes her own doubts. Tibe is as weak as I am, a lonely boy without a path of his own. I will only make things worse. I will only bring him pain. How can I do that? Because of Tibe, she dreamed of leaving court for good. Like Julian wanted to do, to keep Sara from staying behind. The locations varied with the changing nights. She ran to Delphie or Harbor Bay or Piedmont or even the Lakelands, each one painted in shades of black and gray. Shadow cities to swallow her up and hide her from the prince and the crown he offered. But they frightened her too. And they were always empty, even of ghosts. In these dreams, she ended up alone. From these dreams, she woke quietly, in the morning, with dried tears and an aching heart.

Kneeling down next to an article of clothing, Kevin looked up to see Christine a few feet away, gathering up one of her extravagant lolita dresses. Looking at her like this, the girl really did look cute, like a fragile porcelain doll. As he continued to watch her, his eyes landed on the black choker around her neck. “Isn’t that the choker that I bought you for your birthday a while back?” Kevin asked. Christine paused in her work. Her hand went to her choker. “A-ah, um, yes, it is. I… well, this is my… my favorite choker, so I like to wear it a lot…” Christine’s cheeks flushed once more, but she at least didn’t seem to be blowing her top. “After you, Iris, and Lilian left, I was really lonely. I hadn’t realized how important all of you were to me until you were gone. Ever since that day, ever since you three went off to Greece, I’ve taken to wearing this, because it reminded me of all the good times we’ve shared together.” That was probably the most honest thing he’d ever heard Christine say since she’d confessed her feelings for him. He’d noticed it before, but Christine really was a tsundere. She rarely ever told anyone what she was really thinking, and she covered up her embarrassment with bluster and violence. Moments like this were rare for her. He could count the number of times where she’d been honest with her feelings on one hand and still have fingers left over. “I’m sorry we left you like that,” Kevin apologized. Christine shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize. I know that you didn’t have much of a choice. Had you not left, then…” Then he, Lilian, and Iris would have put everyone in danger. Back then, Lilian had been targeted by the Shénshèng Clan. One of its members, a three-tailed kitsune named Fan had attacked them during Lindsay’s soccer game. Iris had nearly been killed and Kevin had destroyed an entire school building just to defeat Fan. Christine had been there when it happened, so she understood why they had to leave. “Thank you for being so understanding,” he said. Christine quickly turned her back to him. “T-there’s no need to thank me. We’re friends. I-I was only doing what any good friend would do.” Tsundere until the end, Kevin thought with an amused chuckle. “Then, Christine, I’m very glad that you’re my friend.” Christine squeaked. As she sputtered incoherently, Kevin finally grabbed the article that he’d been kneeling over. Blinking when he realized that it felt different than everything else that he’d picked up thus far, he held the article up to study it. “What is this…?” He trailed off. The object in his hands… was Christine’s panties. “Uh…” Kevin could hear his brain sizzling. “W-what are you doing, idiot!? Don’t stare at those!” Christine leapt at him, and Kevin, too shocked by the object in his hands to do anything, let her tackle him to the ground. The panties were thrown from his hands as his back slammed into the floor. Spots appeared in his vision, but they were soon replaced by Christine’s face, which hovered not two inches from his own. Their noses were almost touching. “C-Christine?” He felt his eyes widen as Christine’s face inched a little closer to his. This was bad. This was a very bad situation. Christine was straddling him, and he could feel her thighs touching him, and her body was pressed against him, and… and… Oh, no… Perhaps it was the result of him still being horny because Christine had interrupted him and Lilian while they were having sex, but Kevin felt his arousal skyrocket. Christine felt it, too, because her eyes went even wider and she looked down. He also looked down. Then he looked back up. Their eyes met. Christine’s face was the brightest blue that he’d ever seen. “I can explain this,” Kevin said calmly. “KYA!” The sound of Christine’s scream was followed by a loud slap.

Are you kidding? It was beautiful!' exclaimed the janitor. 'Just because you did something when you were younger doesn’t make it stupid. It doesn’t matter if it was a little college show or Broadway, meaningful things are still meaningful things. People can make fun of you for it, sour people, call you childish, but I been around a long time. Both of your two lives combined. And there’s no guarantee people get to do a great show of A Doll’s House ever again. Either life happens or death happens and we may never get another chance. Least thing we can do is to wake up in the morning and protect the good things that were. The past deserves it.

She thought about Hal, the man she'd lived with for almost twenty years, the man she'd slept beside almost every night. She remembered a famous optical illusion; a drawing that could be either a beautiful young woman or an ugly old hag, depending on how you saw it. For almost twenty years, she'd seen only the good- a loving, kind, generous husband; a beautiful house; a beloved, cherished daughter. But for the past weeks and months, things had been changing. It felt like she had finally seen the witch, after years of only seeing the young woman, and now she couldn't un-see. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so.

Please, allow me.” Cletus stepped forward, taking the phone from Charlotte. “I can’t abide two-person selfies. One person’s face looks like a billboard, and the other looks like a doll head.

The Sambo doll, as an image of grotesque black inferiority sold to whites in homage to their superiority, is an ominous and recurring image in Invisible Man, a novel set in the era of segregation. Yet, even today, when people argue for diversity and, thus, for racial preferences, black students are effectively Sambo-ized. They are assigned an inferiority so intractable that nothing overcomes it, not even good schools and high family incomes.

You're very lucky Clara", they said. I didn't feel lucky. When I was little, luck was finding something you thought was lost for good, or winning a porcelain doll at the county fair, or getting a new hat, or having every dance filled on your dance card. Good luck made you feel kissed by heaven and smiled upon by the fates. Good luck made you feel giddy and invincible. Good luck didn't leave you desperately needing a place that was forever in-between yesterday and tomorrow.

I screamed as I dropped through the open air like a meteor, but it was a scream of exhilaration and not fear. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against me, and twirling me in spirals like a rocket crashing to the earth. Yes! The word echoed through my head as I sliced through the surface of the water. It was icy, colder than I'd feared, and yet the chill only added to the high. I was proud of myself as I plunged deeper into the freezing black water. I hadn't had one moment of terror-just pure adrenaline. The fall wasn't scary at all. Where was the challenge? That was when the current caught me. I'd been so preoccupied with the size of the cliffs, by the obvious danger of their high, sheer faces, that I hadn't worried at all about the dark water waiting. I never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far below me, under the heaving surf. It felt like the waves were fighting over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to share by pulling me into halves. I knew the right way to avoid a riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did me little good when I didn't know which way the shore was. I couldn't even tell which way the surface was. The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct me upward. Gravity was all-powerful when it competed with the air, but it had nothing on the waves- I couldn't feel a downward pull, a sinking in any direction. Just the battering of the current that flung me round and round like a rag doll. I fought to keep my breath in, to keep my lips locked around my last store of oxygen.

Looking back, it would be convenient to say that we didn't fit into academia, or we were too much for it. But is anyone really a good fit with a dumpster fire?

I did not know why I destroyed those dolls. But I did know that nobody ever asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Had any adult with the power to fulfill my desires taken me seriously and asked me what I wanted, they would have known that I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object. I wanted rather to feel something on Christmas day. The real question would have been, “Dear Claudia, what experience would you like on Christmas?” I could have spoken up, “I want to sit on the low stool in Big Mama’s kitchen with my lap full of lilacs and listen to Big Papa play his violin for me alone.” The lowness of the stool made for my body, the security and warmth of Big Mama’s kitchen, the smell of the lilacs, the sound of the music, and, since it would be good to have all of my senses engaged, the taste of a peach, perhaps, afterward.

Walt had arrived. He ripped through the enemy line with his bare hands—throwing one rebel magician down the hallway with inhuman strength, touching another and instantly encasing the man in mummy linen. He grabbed the staff of a third rebel, and it crumbled to dust. Finally he swept his hand toward the remaining enemies, and they shrank to the size of dolls. Canopic jars—the sort used to bury a mummy’s internal organs—sprang up around each of the tiny magicians, sealing them in with lids shaped like animal heads. The poor magicians yelled desperately, banging on the clay containers and wobbling about like a line of very unhappy bowling pins. Walt turned to our friends. “Is everyone all right?” He looked like normal old Walt—tall and muscular with a confident face, soft brown eyes, and strong hands. But his clothes had changed. He wore jeans, a dark Dead Weather T-shirt, and a black leather jacket—Anubis’s outfit, sized up to fit Walt’s physique. All I had to do was lower my vision into the Duat, just a bit, and I saw Anubis standing there in all his usual annoying gorgeousness. Both of them—occupying the same space. “Get ready,” Walt told our troops. “They’ve sealed the doors, but I can—” Then he noticed me, and his voice faltered. “Sadie,” he said. “I—” “Something about opening the doors?” I demanded. He nodded mutely. “Amos is in there?” I asked. “Fighting Kwai and Jacobi and who knows what else?” He nodded again. “Then stop staring at me and open the doors, you annoying boy!” I was talking to both of them. It felt quite natural. And it felt good to let my anger out. I’d deal with those two—that one—whatever he was—later. Right now, my uncle needed me. Walt/Anubis had the nerve to smile. He put his hand on the doors. Gray ash spread across the surface. The bronze crumbled to dust.

Landon’s words echo in my head. Just moving parts. I’m a puppet on a string. I’m as good as a prostitute. It’s a sick sort of validation. I’ve been right all along. They only want me for the meat on my bones. Everybody, from Mamere on down, thinks this is it for me. Twirl and dance, little doll. There’s nothing else for you. Who needs a brain when you can let your arms hang in first position and the master will make the moves?

The Second Commandment (Or, A Strong Suggestion) GET YOURSELF A BREAKUP BUDDY What the hell is that?” you ask. “Some ridiculous ‘therapeutic doll' that I'm supposed to yell at and tell my troubles to? Well, I'm not buying.” Take it easy there, Hot Pants! While we like to think of ourselves as your breakup buddy, there is nothing like the ear and heart of another live human being to help get you through this tough time. We want to be the ones you turn to when you need help, and in the event that you can't enlist a friend, we hope that reading these pages will help. But having a good friend to call when you're having a moment of weakness, feeling lonely, or about to eat two whole buckets of fried chicken while sitting in your underwear is where it's at!

You’re doin’ good, Chloe, doll,” my grandfather says. “Just don’t stop.” Those are his last words. His very last. A crack of sound behind us makes me whimper. I’m about to ask if that was a gunshot, but then Grandpa slumps forward in his seat. He stays like that, unmoving. After a minute, I realize there’s blood gushing out of his neck.

Jealous—Labrinth when the party’s over—Billie Eilish White Rabbit—Jefferson Airplane Piano Man—Billy Joel Iris—The Goo Goo Dolls To Build a Home—The Cinematic Orchestra The Good Side—Troye Sivan Nevermind—Dennis Lloyd What It’s Like—Everlast Hi-Lo (Hollow)—Bishop Briggs bury a friend—Billie Eilish Sorry—Halsey

of the most delicious Cox’s Orange Pippins each autumn leaning precariously on the garden wall, the tree like a corner boy up to no good, her mother used to joke. Harp ran around the back – the front door hadn’t been opened in years at that stage – and let herself in. The kitchen was just the same, the delph from breakfast drying on the rack beside the big, deep Belfast sink, the large black flags on the floor, the table cleared and scrubbed, ready for dinner preparations, the big black enamel range that never went out heating the room, winter and summer, the tea cloths hanging on the line over it. Everything neat and tidy. She scurried out the door of the kitchen into the wide bright hallway, almost skidding on the silk carpet runner as she rounded the ornate bannister to bound up the stairs, taking two at a time. The landing overlooked the hallway and was home to a huge walnut sideboard on which sat all the china dolls Mrs Devereaux had loved. Harp thought they were a bit creepy with their glass eyes, real hair and fancy handmade clothes, and thankfully she’d never felt the

came away with a few metaphorically memorable concepts, including the bizarre proposition that two particles could become “entangled” at the quantum level in such a way that anything you did to one particle would happen to the other. Even if they were banished to opposite ends of the universe, they behaved like reciprocating voodoo dolls or invisibly conjoined twins bound to each other’s fate despite billions of light-years between them. Quantum entanglement was so weird that Einstein called it “spooky actions at a distance,

she’d just read an article titled “Loneliness in Marriage” in a popular women’s magazine. The article stated that men and women have trouble communicating because they’re inherently different. When boys are growing up, they play with trucks and learn to solve problems and achieve goals. In contrast, when girls are growing up, they play with dolls and learn to talk about their feelings so they can develop emotional bonds with each other. Allison said she was relieved to discover that millions of women throughout America felt just as lonely and frustrated as she did because their husbands couldn’t deal with feelings or intimacy. She explained that her husband, Burt, was exactly like that— he was an accountant and understood numbers, but didn’t understand a single thing about emotions. She

Platonic intimacy is wildly underrated. Anyone who says otherwise can’t separate women from sex dolls and men from threats to their masculinity. Which is ridiculous. Affectionate physical touch, without expecting anything in return, does everyone a world of good.

Neil was like a Russian nesting doll whose good qualities got smaller the more you uncover him. But Daniel was the oppsite. The more I knew, the better he became.

one good thing about having the worst thing you can imagine actually happen is that nothing else is ever quite as scary again.

No, the problem was walking toward us right now, and she looked good enough to make me regret every decision that led me to this point in time. I’d seen Scarlett in workout clothes. I’d seen her in my bathrobe and my shirt (the latter remained one of the hottest sights of my life). I’d even seen her dolled up for a night out at Neon. But I’d never seen her like this.

Do what you’re good at and do it well. Don’t try to be something you’re not. T.O. dominates the cornerbacks who try to cover him, throwing them around like rag dolls. He doesn’t try to dance around on the line of scrimmage and look pretty. He picks them up and moves them out of the way. Then he runs his route. I’m not on that level, but I take note. Decide what you’re going to do and do it violently.

I felt the shame of unleashing the Beast only until I was washed in a flood of righteousness. The guilt evaporated, sizzled, then vanished like water on a hot skillet as my body shifted. I always expected pain, and the few times this had happened before, I’d been surprised: nothing but goodness, like I’d had an injection that made me somehow better in my Beastliness. My spine arched and stretched, my legs and arms lengthened, my fingers shortened. My jaw grew long and narrow, my ears pointed. My backpack straps were now comfortable, conformed to my new body. As I stepped out of my cheap black China-doll shoes, I felt elegant, sleek, graceful. The wind ruffled my fur.

You’re so much smarter than I am, Caleb. So much stronger and so much more persuasive. If I married you, I wouldn’t be myself for very long. I’d soon become the person you want me to be.” He sat back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. “I wouldn’t change you for the world,” he protested quietly. “Yes, you would,” Lily insisted. “You’d make me into a china doll, overseeing tea parties and embroidering samplers and gazing at you in worshipful adoration. And eventually you’d get tired of me, Caleb, and take a mistress.” He glowered at her, as though insulted. “I would never betray you.” “Oh, no? What about when I’m pregnant, Caleb—all fat, with swollen ankles and a chronic case of the weeps. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t turn to another woman for the comforts you so obviously need?” “I’d find you more attractive than ever,” Caleb answered with annoyed certainty. Lily picked up her spoon, then set it down again. Her hands knotted into fists in her lap. “You weren’t faithful to Sandra. Why should I fare any better?” “Because I love you, for one thing. And I explained before—I didn’t sleep with Sandra.” “I might not feel like sleeping with you, either—if I happened to get pregnant, that is. What would you do then, Caleb?” “Wait,” he answered. Then a slow grin spread across his face. “And do my damnedest to seduce you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty good at that.” Lily flushed and squirmed a little, remembering. There was no denying his assertion: Caleb could practically tumble her onto her back with a look or a touch. The fact tormented her, for she couldn’t discern whether it was because of some special skill on his part or because she was basically a loose woman like her mother. “I’ve noticed,” she admitted. Caleb gazed at her for a long time, then went back to eating his stew.

She cursed loud enough to attract the attention of an older man who’d dolled himself up for the evening, his eyes glaring at her over the top of the Asheville Citizen-Times. She slashed him with a sardonic smile and got up, enraged at herself over this swell of weakness. She took two steps. Everything changed. The anger melted. Exhilaration flooding in to take its place. In the emotion and fear of the moment, it had completely escaped her.

Hello, ladies, I’m your uncle Devlin. Has Westhaven scared you witless with his fuming and fretting?” This fellow looked to be great fun, with a nice smile and kind green eyes. “Mama and Papa didn’t say anything about getting uncles for Christmas,” Amanda observed, but she was smiling back at the big uncle. The biggest uncle—they were all as tall as Papa. “Well, that’s because we’re a surprise,” the other dark-haired fellow said. “I’m your uncle Valentine, and we have an entire gaggle of aunties waiting out in the coach to spoil you rotten. Westhaven here is just out of sorts because Father Christmas gave him a headache for being naughty yesterday.” “I was not naughty.” The other two uncles thought this was quite funny, judging by their smiles. “There’s your problem,” said Uncle Devlin. “I’m thinking it’s a fine day for a pair of ladies to join their aunts for a ride in the traveling coach.” Uncle Gayle—it didn’t seem fair to call him by the same name as Fleur’s puppy—appeared to consider this. “For what purpose?” “To keep the peace. Emmie and I never haul out our big guns around the children,” said Uncle Devlin, which made no sense. “Do you like to play soldiers?” Fleur asked. Amanda appeared intrigued by the notion. She was forever galloping up hills and charging down banisters in pursuit of the French. Uncle Devlin’s brows knitted—he had wonderful dark eyebrows, much like Papa’s. “As a matter of fact, on occasion, if I’ve been an exceedingly good fellow, my daughter lets me join her in a game of soldiers.” “I’m not exactly unfamiliar with the business myself,” said Uncle Valentine. “I excel at the lightning charge and have been known to take even the occasional doll prisoner.” “Missus Wolverhampton would not like being a prisoner,” Fleur said, though Uncle Valentine was teasing—wasn’t he?” “Perhaps you gentlemen can arrange an assignation to play soldiers with our nieces on some other day,” Westhaven said. He sounded like his teeth hurt, which Fleur knew might be from the seasonal hazard of eating too much candy. “You can play too,” Fleur allowed, because it was Christmas, and one ought to be kind to uncles who strayed into one’s nursery. “We’ll let you be Wellington,” Amanda added, getting into the spirit of the day. “Which leaves me to be Blucher’s mercenaries,” Uncle Devlin said, “saving the day as usual.” “Oh, that’s brilliant.” Uncle Valentine wasn’t smiling now. “Leave your baby brother to be the infernal French again, will you? See if I write a waltz for your daughter’s come out, St. Just.” Uncle Gayle wasn’t frowning quite so mightily. In fact, he looked like he wanted to smile but was too grown-up to allow it. “Perhaps you ladies will gather up a few soldiers and fetch a doll or two. We’re going on a short journey to find your mama and papa, so we can all share Christmas with them.” Fleur noticed his slip, and clearly, Amanda had too—but it was the same slip Amanda had made earlier, and one Fleur was perfectly happy to let everybody make. Uncle Gayle had referred to their papa’s new wife not as their stepmama, but as their mama. What a fine thing that would be, if for Christmas they got a mama again for really and truly. Amanda fetched their dolls, Fleur grabbed their favorite storybook, and the uncles herded them from the nursery, all three grown men arguing about whose turn it was to be the blasted French. ***

Damn. Mama says the ugly girls are the lucky ones because they don't have to worry. I was at the nursing home visiting Miss Willoughby and she showed me a picture of herself when she was my age. She was perfect — like an old-fashioned China doll. And she never got married, her whole life through. She was never together with a man. Now, as sweet as she is, her face looks like a road map and her teeth are all pushed-out and yellow. And all I thought was, boy, is her chance over now. If I were as gorgeous as Miss Willoughby was, I'd always be worried that time was running out I wouldn't want to waste being pretty by being good. So I don't want to be all that pretty.

Heidel nodded. “Good. We’ll make a bargain. I’ll help you find the doll. And you help me murder whoever stole my Lumen bread.

Unfortunately, even as he removed his shirt to reveal shoulders good enough to make a girl go slack-jawed, his only thought was of the errant au gratin potato. “Here you go, Doll,” he said, holding his shirt out to her. “Maybe you could get that cheese out, before it’s too late.

They’re such little thoughts”—Matrona winced, fingers returning to her temples—“often passing as quickly as they came, or after a good night’s rest. Only, imagine if all those thoughts were . . . I don’t know, saved in a chest. Every single one. And every bad feeling you’ve ever had. Guilt over telling a lie, or shame from doing something wrong. All of it inside this chest. And then suddenly you’re in the room with the chest, and it opens, but someone’s jammed the door and you can’t get out—” “You’re rambling, Matrona.” Roksana clicked her tongue and resituated her heavy body, trying to get comfortable. “You sound almost poetic, in a sad, strange way.” “Just imagine it, Roksana!” Matrona cried, her hands jerking away from her temples and slamming fists into her pillow, making her friend jump. “Imagine how it would make you feel. What would you do, trapped with all of it around you?” Tears wet her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to banish them, her eyes still sore from the night’s weeping. “Tell me what to do.

You should do commercials, […] You’re really good at selling the whole parenting thing. I’m pretty sure I went sterile after you started talking about the hair salon for dolls.

We are so enamoured of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better. But if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats who could do calculus, and frogs would by now have launched their own space programme. Why are giant brains so rare in the animal kingdom? The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when encased inside a massive skull. It’s even harder to fuel. In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2–3 per cent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8 per cent of rest-time energy. Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can’t win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll. Today

Third Week of June 2012 The questionnaire arrived via email from Dr. Arius. It read: Good Day, Young! Thank you for agreeing to be a candidate in my survey. As I mentioned previously, let’s conduct this research like our regular correspondence. There is no pressure on your part to answer or not to answer my questions; it’s entirely up to your discretion on the way you like to channel this analysis. There are no fixed rules or regulations on how you answer my queries. Be yourself and treat this study like you are talking with a confidant. Let’s get started and begin from the beginning; * In “Initiation” you said that as far as you can remember; as a baby you disliked your father. What was it that you didn’t like about the man? Did he have a certain smell that repelled you or something conscious or subconscious that repulsed your connection towards him? * Do you think your overly protective mother had an influence on you disliking your father? * When you were wearing pretty frocks and playing with dolls, did you feel less than a boy? How did you feel or react when you saw other boys playing with ‘boyish’ toys; like miniature toy soldiers or train sets, etc.? * Did your mom try distancing you away from your dad? * What did your brothers think of your parent’s relationship? * Did you have any boy pals or friends when you were growing up? If not, why is that? Would you have grown up differently if you had had guy friends? Let’s start with these questions and we’ll proceed further with others, as we continue along in our future correspondence. Now that you, Andy and Oscar have reconnected, I hope your newfound friendships are progressing well with both your ex ‘big brothers and lovers. Keep me posted, as I’m interested to know the outcome. Kind regards, A.S.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.…’” Cath closed the book and let it fall on Levi’s chest, not sure what happened next. Not sure she was awake, all things considered. The moment it fell, he pulled her into him. Onto him. With both arms. Her chest pressed against his, and the paperback slid between their stomachs. Cath’s eyes were half closed, and so were Levi’s—and his lips only looked small from afar, she realized, because of their doll-like pucker. They were perfectly big, really, now that she had a good look at them. Perfectly something. He nudged his nose against hers, and their mouths fell sleepily together, already soft and open. When Cath’s eyes closed, her eyelids stuck. She wanted to open them. She wanted to get a better look at Levi’s too-dark eyebrows, she wanted to admire his crazy, vampire hairline—she had a feeling this was never going to happen again and that it might even ruin what was left of her life, so she wanted to open her eyes and bear some witness. But she was so tired. And his mouth was so soft. And nobody had ever kissed Cath like this before. Only Abel had kissed her before, and that was like getting pushed squarely on the mouth and pushing back. Levi’s kisses were all taking. Like he was drawing something out of her with soft little jabs of his chin. She brought her fingers up to his hair, and she couldn’t open her eyes. Eventually, she couldn’t stay awake. “I’m sorry, Penelope.” “Don’t waste my time with sorries, Simon. If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.

We’re better than a good thing. We’re the best thing.

The sound of his hard-soled shoes on the street faltered. “You live in a church?” My eyes narrowed. “Yeah. But I don’t sleep with voodoo dolls.” “Huh?” “Never mind.

She was asleep before he even peeled the covers back and gently lowered her down to the sheets. She might protest that she was no china doll, but in some respects, Ruaidri mused, he would always treat her as one—worthy of the utmost care and protection. His care and protection. How he loved her. Loved her. His eyes filled with sudden, unexpected emotion as he looked down at her, sleeping. They were safe here in Newburyport, with a solid roof over their heads and the end of his mission in sight. A nice little town, this one, and his cousin was right. They already had friends and family here. It was as good if not better a place than any to settle down and begin their lives together.

Are you having tea, Miss Rose?” “Yes, Mr. Bronson. Miss Crumpet asked me to pour. Would you like a cup, too?” Before Holly could restrain her, the little girl hastened to Bronson with a doll-sized cup and saucer no bigger than his thumbnail. “Here you are, sir.” A tiny concerned frown adorned her brow. “It's only ‘air tea,’ but it's quite delicious if you're good at pretending.” Bronson accepted the cup as if it were a great favor. Carefully he sampled the invisible brew. “A bit more sugar, perhaps,” he said thoughtfully. Holly watched while the two prepared the cup to Bronson's satisfaction. She had not expected Bronson to interact so comfortably with a child. In fact, not even George's brothers, Rose's own uncles, had displayed such ease with her. Children were seldom part of a man's world. Even the most doting father did little more than view his child once or twice a day and inquire after his or her progress. Glancing at Holly briefly, Bronson caught her perplexed expression. “I was coerced into more than a few tea parties by Elizabeth when she was no bigger than Rose,” he said. “Although Lizzie had to make do with shingles for plates and an old tin cup instead of china. I always swore I'd get her a proper toy tea set someday. By the time I could afford one, she was too old to want it any longer.

valley? That should be interesting for you.” “I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet.” “I’d be happy to help,” Mr. Bally said. “I’m an expert on the subject you’re studying.” He picked up one of the microfilm boxes. “Judges in these contests like primary sources.” I knew that. Judges in these contests always liked primary sources. I was already using one. “Tell me about Andover,” I’d said to Cissy Langer, sitting in her back room with a wall full of piggy dolls staring at me. “Oh, my goodness, Mimi, what a question,” she’d said. I took the glass of iced tea, and I took the plate of chocolate chip cookies, and I set my tape recorder between them. I’d borrowed it from the school librarian. “I’ve already got some primary sources,” I said to Winston Bally in the conference room. We all pick and choose the things we talk about, I guess. I’d listened to my mother and Cissy talk about growing up together for maybe hundreds of hours, about sharing a seat and red licorice ropes on the bus, about getting licked for wearing their Sunday dresses into the woods one day, about the years when they both moved back in with their parents while their husbands went to war. And somehow I’d never really noticed that all the stories started when they were ten, that there were no stories about the four-year-old Miriam, the six-year-old Cissy, about the day when they were both seven when Ruth came home from the hospital, a bundle of yellow crochet yarn and dirty diaper. It made sense, I guess, since it turned out Cissy had grown up in a place whose name I’d never even heard because it had been wiped off the map before I’d ever even been born. “My whole family lived in Andover,” Cissy said. “My mother and

In 1975, Richard Doll and Bruce Armstrong published a seminal analysis of diet and cancer, in which they noted that, the higher the sugar intake in different nations, the higher both the incidence of and mortality from cancer of the colon, rectum, breast, ovary, uterus, prostate, kidney, nervous system, and testicles.

I’m not certain if it was her, for real, but she practically reeked of goodness father, to the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to eat her, fuck her or throw up, honestly.

Clevedon,' she began. He turned back to her, the smile fading. 'You may not rake me over the coals,' he said. 'She set out to captivate me, much as her mother did-' 'She's six years old!' 'You both succeeded,' he said. 'What was I to do? She's a little girl. Why should she not have a doll?' 'She has dolls! Does she seem neglected to you? Deprived in any way? She's *my* daughter, and I take care of her. She has nothing to do with you. You've no business buying her dolls. What will Lady Clara think? What do you think your fine friends in the ton will say when they hear you've given my daughter gifts? You know they'll hear of it.' Lucie would show the doll to the seamstresses, naturally, and they'd tell everybody they knew, and word would spread through the ton in no time at all. 'And do you think their speculations will do my business any good?' 'That's all you think about. Your business.' 'It's my life, you great thickhead! This' - she swept her hand to indicate the shop - 'This is how I *earn* my living. Can you not grasp this simple concept? Earning a living?' 'I'm not-' 'This is how I feed and clothe and house and educate my daughter,' she raged on. 'This is how I provide for my sisters. What must I do to make you understand? How can you be so blind, so willfully obtuse, so-' 'You'll make me run mad,' he said. 'Everywhere I turn, there you are.' 'That's monstrous unfair! Everywhere I go, there is your great carcass!

CHAPTER 1   Mon, Jan. 18, 1993   I got back home from Grandpa's house yesterday.  It was a really long plane ride, but I slept a lot, so that's why I'm writing now and not yesterday.  Mom and Dad said I had to go back to school today, and I'm really mad about that.  I had to go to school at Grandpa's too, because I was there for so long. So when I went to school this morning and talked to the principal to get me back in, they told me something that really made me upset.  Remember how they moved me to 4th grade when I was at Grandpa's?  Well, they put me back in 3rd!  I did so good when I was in 4th grade, but now I have to go backwards!  I'm not stupid!  It's not fair!  I don't want to start over!  I think Dad was really mad about it, but I don't know why, he doesn't have to go back to 3rd grade. Well, I still went to school today, even though I was really mad.  It was the same teacher I had before I went to Grandpa's, Miss Florence.  She was happy to see me, and I was too, because she's really nice, but I felt sad that I wasn't still in 4th grade.  I missed the friends I had here, but I miss my friends at the other school too.  I don't know, I felt really weird today. But today something cool happened... I remembered that I've been writing in you for a whole year now!  It's like you're my friend... a secret friend!  I can tell you anything I want, and nobody tries to find out what I say! I want to give you a name.  I want to call you............. “Barbie.”  Is that okay?  I know there are Barbie dolls, but all I do is dress them up, they just like to play pretend. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Barbie!

Ian opens the box and moves the polystyrene strips to uncover a matryoshka. He’s astonished when he sees that it’s his face painted on it. "But...," he says. "Is it me?" He looks at Andrea, puzzled. "You’re very good." The look is from a photo of him at a party, before he knew him personally, that he found on the internet. He’s in a gray suit and has a cane, like a count from the olden days. "That's the Count," he says, and Ian looks at him and swallows. Andrea smiles. His gift holds a deep meaning that only the two of them understand. Ian opens the first doll and inside there is another. He gasps on seeing it. "That’s Dorian," says Andrea. He has painted Ian as he had looked on the night of his first event. When he wore the white Versace suit and Borsalino fedora. His hand trembling, Ian opens the doll to see the next one inside. "That's Ian," Andrea smiles, as does Ian when he sees himself portrayed with the black linen scarf and white sweater that he was wearing when they had met for the first time in Clusone. He has a serious look in the previous dolls while here he is cheerful. Ian shakes the doll a little and hears the wood rattle. He looks at Andrea, doubtful: they both know that their rapport finishes here. Andrea hasn’t discovered his innermost layer and sounderstands his perplexity. Ian seems to have to pluck up courage and then opens again. Inside there is the last, smallest doll, made from a single small piece of wood and known as the "seed". It dances in a large empty space, given that the doll above it is missing. It’s golden and doesn’t have a face. "That’s the soul," says Andrea. "One’s missing. That's why there's that little table with brushes in my room. I hope to do it soon. As soon as I can." Ian takes the little piece of wood and holds it in his fist. "Thank you, Andrea. It’s a wonderful gift," he says, tightening his jaw. "I eagerly await the last." He’s

How could someone disappear like that? And what’s with him throwing Eddie around like a rag-doll? He was in good shape, of course, but I didn’t understand how he could be so strong. Talk about the power of adrenaline.

Life is a hierarchy of nested levels, like Russian dolls: genes within chromosomes within cells within individual organisms within hives, societies, and other groups.