Echo Double Quotes

Theres no such thing as vampire mojo,"said Jace,rather eeirly echoing Clarys earlier comment."And I was following Clary,but then she got into a cab,and I cant follow a cab.So I doubled back and followed you instead.Mostly for something to do" "You were following Clary?"Simon echoed."Heres a hot tip : Most girls dont like being stalked

One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star. . . . "Father! Those poor people!" I cried. . . . "Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye.

Bramble's lips were tight. Her fists still shook. "Take it back," she said. She gazed at the floor, but the words whipped. "We don't want the picture. We don't want your charity. Take it back!" Teddie drew himself up to his full, towering taffy height. "N-dash it-O!" he said. "It's not charity and I won't take it back! It's a gift! A gift, dash it all! Because I liked your mum! And I like your sisters! And you, Bramble! I love you!" The words echoed. Everyone's hands clasped over their mouths, and they stared at Lord Teddie, who panted but kept a tight chin up. Bramble's lips were still pursed. They were white. "Young man," said the King gently. "Your ship leaves soon?" Azalea guessed that, with the fiasco of everything, the King had annulled any arrangements between Bramble and Lord Teddie. Lord Teddie's entire taffylike form slumped. He turned to go, all bounciness dissolved. "Do you mean it?" Lord Teddie turned quickly. Bramble's lips remained tight, but her gaze was up, blazing yellow. "Gad, yes," said Lord Teddie. "I love you so much, my fingers hurt!" "Oh!" Bramble slapped he hand over her mouth and doubled over. "Oh-oh-oh-oh!" She shook. It was hard to tell if she was crying, or coughing, or ill. "Oh!" In a billow of skirts, Bramble leaped. It was a grand jete worthy of the Delchastrian prima ballerina. She landed right on Lord Teddie, who had no choice but to catch her, and threw her arms around his neck. Then, to everyone's shock, she pressed her lips full on his. "Oh...my," said Clover. No one seemed more surprised than Lord Teddie who stumbled back under Bramble's assault.

The Frays had never been a religiously observant family, but Clary loved Fifth Avenue at Christmas time. The air smelled like sweet roasted chestnuts, and the window displays sparkled with silver and blue, green and red. This year there were fat round crystal snowflakes attached to each lamppost, sending back the winter sunlight in shafts of gold. Not to mention the huge tree at Rockefeller Center. It threw its shadow across them as she and Simon draped themselves over the gate at the side of the skating rink, watching tourists fall down as they tried to navigate the ice. Clary had a hot chocolate wrapped in her hands, the warmth spreading through her body. She felt almost normal—this, coming to Fifth to see the window displays and the tree, had been a winter tradition for her and Simon for as long as she could remember. “Feels like old times, doesn’t it?” he said, echoing her thoughts as he propped his chin on his folded arms. She chanced a sideways look at him. He was wearing a black topcoat and scarf that emphasized the winter pallor of his skin. His eyes were shadowed, indicating that he hadn’t fed on blood recently. He looked like what he was—a hungry, tired vampire. Well, she thought. Almost like old times. “More people to buy presents for,” she said. “Plus, the always traumatic what-to-buy-someone-for-the-first-Christmas-after-you’ve-started-dating question.” “What to get the Shadowhunter who has everything,” Simon said with a grin. “Jace mostly likes weapons,” Clary sighed. “He likes books, but they have a huge library at the Institute. He likes classical music …” She brightened. Simon was a musician; even though his band was terrible, and was always changing their name—currently they were Lethal Soufflé—he did have training. “What would you give someone who likes to play the piano?” “A piano.” “Simon.” “A really huge metronome that could also double as a weapon?” Clary sighed, exasperated. “Sheet music. Rachmaninoff is tough stuff, but he likes a challenge.” “Now you’re talking. I’m going to see if there’s a music store around here.” Clary, done with her hot chocolate, tossed the cup into a nearby trash can and pulled her phone out. “What about you? What are you giving Isabelle?” “I have absolutely no idea,” Simon said. They had started heading toward the avenue, where a steady stream of pedestrians gawking at the windows clogged the streets. “Oh, come on. Isabelle’s easy.” “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.” Simon’s brows drew together. “I think. I’m not sure. We haven’t discussed it. The relationship, I mean.” “You really have to DTR, Simon.” “What?” “Define the relationship. What it is, where it’s going. Are you boyfriend and girlfriend, just having fun, ‘it’s complicated,’ or what? When’s she going to tell her parents? Are you allowed to see other people?” Simon blanched. “What? Seriously?” “Seriously. In the meantime—perfume!” Clary grabbed Simon by the back of his coat and hauled him into a cosmetics store that had once been a bank. It was massive on the inside, with rows of gleaming bottles everywhere. “And something unusual,” she said, heading for the fragrance area. “Isabelle isn’t going to want to smell like everyone else. She’s going to want to smell like figs, or vetiver, or—” “Figs? Figs have a smell?” Simon looked horrified; Clary was about to laugh at him when her phone buzzed. It was her mother. where are you? It’s an emergency.

Double consciousness is knowing the particularity of the white world in the face of its enforced claim to universality. Double consciousness is knowing the history offered up to black people—its many interpretations and echoes of white superiority and black inferiority, of white heroism and black cowardice, and even the temporal and geographical location of history’s beginning as a step off of the African continent—is a falsehood that blacks are forced to treat as truth in so many countless ways. Double consciousness, in other words, is knowing a lie while living its contradiction.

Most everyone lived twice in those days. They echoed their own steps. They took one step in the real world and one in their space. They saw double, through eyes and monocle displays. They danced through worlds like veils.

One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star. . . . "Father! Those poor people!" I cried. . . . "Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the soldiers now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye.

Cow," Tanith muttered, and that was it, the floodgates opened, and Stephanie doubled over with laughter that echoed throughout the warehouse. Tanith pointed at Stephanie and backed away. "Skulduggery, she's not being professional!

Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wicked ways and works, That have made of Ak-Hissar A city of the plague; And the loud, exultant cry That echoes wide and far Is: "Long live Scanderbeg!

There are many highly intelligent people who have no answer at all in them. A conversation or a correspondence with such persons is nothing but a double monologue--you may stroke them or strike them, you will get no more echo from them than from a block of wood. And how, then, can you yourself go on speaking?

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

I want to see the Parthenon by moonlight.' I had my way. They floodlight it now, to great advantage I am told, but it was not so then, and since it was late in the year there were few tourists. My companions were all intelligent men, including my own husband, and they had the sense to stay mute. I suppose, being a woman, I confuse beauty with sentiment, but, as I looked on the Parthenon for the first time in my life, I found myself crying. It had never happened to me before. Your sunset weepers I despise. It was not full moon, or anywhere near it. The half circle put me in mind of the labrys, the Cretan double axe, and the pillars were the most ghostly in consequence. What a shock for the modern aesthete, I thought when my crying was done, if he could see the ruddy glow of colour, the painted eyes, the garish lips, the orange-reds and blues that were there once, and Athene herself a giantess on her pedestal touched by the rising sun. Even in those distant times the exigencies of a state religion had brought their own traffic, the buying and selling of doves, of trinkets: to find himself, a man had to go to the woods, to the hills. "Come on," said Stephen. "It's beautiful and stark, if you like, but so is St. Pancras station at 4 A.M. It depends on your association of ideas." We crammed into Burns's small car, and went back to our hotel. ("The Chamois")

Imagine, he said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara's answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.

The voice welling up out of this little man is terrific, Harry had noticed it at the house, but here, in the nearly empty church, echoing off the walnut knobs and memorial plaques and high arched rafters, beneath the tall central window of Jesus taking off into the sky with a pack of pastel apostles for a launching pad, the timbre is doubled, richer, with a rounded sorrowful something Rabbit hadn't noticed hitherto, gathering and pressing the straggle of guests into a congregation, subduing any fear that this ceremony might be a farce. Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken.

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the fear'd.

...but prejudices, like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle — solid as the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo, or as the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness.

the six of us are supposed to drive to the diner in Hastings for lunch. But the moment we enter the cavernous auditorium where the girls told us to meet them, my jaw drops and our plans change. “Holy shit—is that a red velvet chaise lounge?” The guys exchange a WTF look. “Um…sure?” Justin says. “Why—” I’m already sprinting toward the stage. The girls aren’t here yet, which means I have to act fast. “For fuck’s sake, get over here,” I call over my shoulder. Their footsteps echo behind me, and by the time they climb on the stage, I’ve already whipped my shirt off and am reaching for my belt buckle. I stop to fish my phone from my back pocket and toss it at Garrett, who catches it without missing a beat. “What is happening right now?” Justin bursts out. I drop trou, kick my jeans away, and dive onto the plush chair wearing nothing but my black boxer-briefs. “Quick. Take a picture.” Justin doesn’t stop shaking his head. Over and over again, and he’s blinking like an owl, as if he can’t fathom what he’s seeing. Garrett, on the other hand, knows better than to ask questions. Hell, he and Hannah spent two hours constructing origami hearts with me the other day. His lips twitch uncontrollably as he gets the phone in position. “Wait.” I pause in thought. “What do you think? Double guns, or double thumbs up?” “What is happening?” We both ignore Justin’s baffled exclamation. “Show me the thumbs up,” Garrett says. I give the camera a wolfish grin and stick up my thumbs. My best friend’s snort bounces off the auditorium walls. “Veto. Do the guns. Definitely the guns.” He takes two shots—one with flash, one without—and just like that, another romantic gesture is in the bag. As I hastily put my clothes back on, Justin rubs his temples with so much vigor it’s as if his brain has imploded. He gapes as I tug my jeans up to my hips. Gapes harder when I walk over to Garrett so I can study the pictures. I nod in approval. “Damn. I should go into modeling.” “You photograph really well,” Garrett agrees in a serious voice. “And dude, your package looks huge.” Fuck, it totally does. Justin drags both hands through his dark hair. “I swear on all that is holy—if one of you doesn’t tell me what the hell just went down here, I’m going to lose my shit.” I chuckle. “My girl wanted me to send her a boudoir shot of me on a red velvet chaise lounge, but you have no idea how hard it is to find a goddamn red velvet chaise lounge.” “You say this as if it’s an explanation. It is not.” Justin sighs like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. “You hockey players are fucked up.” “Naah, we’re just not pussies like you and your football crowd,” Garrett says sweetly. “We own our sex appeal, dude.” “Sex appeal? That was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever—no, you know what? I’m not gonna engage,” Justin grumbles. “Let’s find the girls and grab some lunch

The off curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor. Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing. It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts. He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.

Echophenomena, such as autistic echoing of phrases, are largely considered involuntary, even if such echoing is done voluntarily. (Such are the paradoxes of compliance.) Conversely, imitation, such as complying with a behavioral analyst's demand to mirror her jumping body, is regarded as voluntary, even if it is coerced or scripted.

First, a dial tone, followed by eleven rapid beeps from an invisible push-button telephone. This was followed by three or four high-pitched electronic whistles, collapsing into a longer whistle resembling the flatlining of a dying patient hooked to an EKG machine (this was the sound of the phone line’s echo suppression being disabled). There were a few more beeps absorbed into a wall of white noise, and then the white noise abruptly doubled, meaning the receiving modem was now interacting with the calling modem. There was an instant where it sounded like something inside the computer had broken, spontaneously repaired by the digital interplay of two probing modulators, similar in pitch to a metal detector passing over a pocket watch. This was bookended by another fleeting second of white noise, and then . . . silence.

In those first months of discernment, I became captivated by the Catholic imagination, with its double vision. My taste for paradox, for mystery, had been an anticipation of this and found new completion there. Metaphors still flourished, but what they revealed was real, not simply creative human conjurings. God has etched into the created order echoes and figures that signal a divine reality. Nothing is ever simply itself, but is also a mirror of God. While the Protestant imagination can be said to be dialectical, thinking in terms of either- or and stressing the unlikeness of things, the Catholic imagination is analogical—incarnation-seeing things in terms of likeness and unity, welcoming paradox. There is no schism between faith and reason, between the sacred and secular, between the natural and numinous; God, the ground of all Being, inhabits each of these realms. All of reality is engraced.

Double You by Stewart Stafford Life can make a twin of you, When you occupy the same air, You can't feel them twinning you, Until your doppelgänger's there. You're twice the Sapien you were, Cloned and replicated new fellows, You're not feeling yourself just now, Feats and phrases are all echoes. But if someone seeks out a quote, You tell them to ask the mirror you, Only things trumping who you are, Are you and matching Double You. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

For an instant she had an impulse to cry out and beat on the door, not to care who heard, not to care that the whole house should come and gather round her naked misery; but she was stopped by a sudden new wisdom. It shuddered down on her heart, a wisdom she had never known or needed before, and held her quiet. At all costs there mustn’t be two of them doing these things, at all costs these things mustn’t be doubled, must have echoes. If Everard was like this he must be like it alone. (160-1)

I love the way the rain melts the colors together, like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. There is a moment, just after sunset, when the shops turn on their lights and steam starts to fog up the windows of the cafés. In French, this twilight time implies a hint of danger. It's called entre chien et loup, between the dog and the wolf. It was just beginning to get dark as we walked through the small garden of Palais Royal. We watched as carefully dressed children in toggled peacoats and striped woolen mittens finished the same game of improvised soccer we had seen in the Place Sainte Marthe. Behind the Palais Royal the wide avenues around the Louvre gave way to narrow streets, small boutiques, and bistros. It started to drizzle. Gwendal turned a corner, and tucked in between two storefronts, barely wider than a set of double doors, I found myself staring down a corridor of fairy lights. A series of arches stretched into the distance, topped with panes of glass, like a greenhouse, that echoed the plip-plop of the rain. It was as if we'd stepped through the witch's wardrobe, the phantom tollbooth, what have you, into another era. The Passage Vivienne was nineteenth-century Paris's answer to a shopping mall, a small interior street lined with boutiques and tearooms where ladies could browse at their leisure without wetting the bustles of their long dresses or the plumes of their new hats. It was certainly a far cry from the shopping malls of my youth, with their piped-in Muzak and neon food courts. Plaster reliefs of Greek goddesses in diaphanous tunics lined the walls. Three-pronged brass lamps hung from the ceiling on long chains. About halfway down, there was an antique store selling nothing but old kitchenware- ridged ceramic bowls for hot chocolate, burnished copper molds in the shape of fish, and a pewter mold for madeleines, so worn around the edges it might have belonged to Proust himself. At the end of the gallery, underneath a clock held aloft by two busty angels, was a bookstore. There were gold stencils on the glass door. Maison fondée en 1826.

She squints into the shadows between the trees, but there is no shape, no god to be found—only that voice, close as a breath against her cheek. “Adeline, Adeline,” it says, mocking, “… they are calling for you.” She turns again, finding nothing but deep shadow. “Show yourself,” she orders, her own voice sharp and brittle as a stick. Something brushes her shoulder, grazes her wrist, drapes itself around her like a lover. Adeline swallows. “What are you?” The shadow’s touch withdraws. “What am I?” it asks, an edge of humor in that velvet tone. “That depends on what you believe.” The voice splits, doubles, rattling through tree limbs and snaking over moss, folding over on itself until it is everywhere. “So tell me—tell me—tell me,” it echoes. “Am I the devil—the devil—or the dark—dark—dark? Am I a monster—monster—or a god—god—god—or…” The shadows in the woods begin to pull together, drawn like storm clouds. But when they settle, the edges are no longer wisps of smoke, but hard lines, the shape of a man, made firm by the light of the village lanterns at his back. “Or am I this?” The voice spills from a perfect pair of lips, a shadow revealing emerald eyes that dance below black brows, black hair that curls across his forehead, framing a face Adeline knows too well. One that she has conjured up a thousand times, in pencil and charcoal and dream. It is the stranger. Her stranger. She knows it is a trick, a shadow parading as a man, but the sight of him still robs her breath. The darkness looks down at his shape, seeing himself as if for the first time, and seems to approve. “Ah, so the girl believes in something after all.” Those green eyes lift. “Well now,” he says, “you have called, and I have come.” Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.

Herveus is impervious to emotions, but Aveline has unlocked something in him. He is drowning in a great wave, just trying to get back to the shore. The main memories he has from his childhood are of hunger. Just the echo of the gnawing pain makes him double over clasping his stomach. The other strongest memories are of violence—beatings from strangers leaving him unable to move for days. In all the haunting recollections, it had always been just him, alone. How could I forget my sister? It was like an impenetrable gate had opened in his mind, bringing forth another set of sad blue eyes from a time forgotten. I hadn’t been alone

When you come to any town And one comes to any town very late When you come very late to any town In case that town happens to be Valjevo Where I also came You'll come by the path you had to come by Which didn't exist before you But was born with you For you to go by your path And meet her whom you must meet On the path you must go by Who was your life Even before you met her Or knew that she existed Both her and the town to which you came. ***** Until she comes into your life And there forever remains She who started towards you From a great distance From somewhere in the Russian Jerusalem From the Caucasus from Pyatigorsk Where she had never been And her name was what it was For instance Vera Pavlodoljska And looked the way she looked The way no one on earth looks anymore. ***** That will be the only town Where you’ve always been And as soon as you heard her name And before you met her You always knew her And already loved her for centuries. When you come to any town And one comes to any town very late When you come very late to any town In case that town happens to be Valjevo You will come stepping to a double echo Yours and the clatter of another Who travels with you And whose voice blows in the wind On an unusual day for that time of year So even you won’t be sure What town that is Nor which are your steps You’ll only know that voice That doesn’t blow in the wind But appears in you ***** When you come very late to any town The world will become a reminder of her And there won’t be a single place on earth Where she won’t be waiting for you Nor a mirror in which she won’t appear Nor blonde hair that isn’t hers Nor a cloud without her silken smile Space, fields and water have remembered her The way she was when you first met her In any town ***** And nothing would be the way that it is If it could have been the way that it couldn’t Because there exists only one town And only one arrival And only one encounter And each is the first and only And it never happened before or after And all towns are one Parts of one single town Of a town above all towns Of a town that is you Towards which everyone goes ***** And as soon as you saw her You loved her from the beginning And in advance rued the parting Which took place Before you met her Because there exists only one town And only one woman And one single day And one song above all songs And one single word And one town in which you heard it And one mouth that said it And from everything about the way it uttered it You knew it was uttering it for the first time And that you could quietly shut your eyes Because you’d already died and already risen And that which never was had repeated itself.

It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances.” Ian snickered. “Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that’s how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he’s been trying to make us believe that contributed.” “It wasn’t little. I have a scar. A knife fight.” Sam was righteous about it. “He barely nicked you,” Ian sneered. “A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut.” Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. “I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn’t slept in days.” “Profusely?” Ian echoed. “Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn’t slept in days, that much is true, but the rest . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami. Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn’t inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she’d seen evidence of much worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gaze at him until his heart tripped all over itself. Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar . . .” “Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re not telling her that story.” “You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear ther was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.” “You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded. “What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled. “Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing. Azami shook her head. “You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?” “Ryland wishes we made them up,” Sam said. “Seriously, we’re sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy-occupied village and there’s this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we’re carrying the sack of shit . . . er . . . our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life—” “The man is seriously heavy,” Ian interrupted. “He was kidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn’t treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn’t want to go out in the rain.” “He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine,” Sam continued, laughing at the memory. “He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down.” “The river had flooded the village,” Sam added. “We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We’re all muddy and he’s wiggling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar.

So what are you scared of?' he asks me at our last appointment. 'I mean really scared of.' I try to think about it. 'I'm scared that if I can't even handle this right now, how will I be able to handle bigger things in the future?' He nods. He scrapes his moustache against his thumbs. 'Bigger things in the future. What's bigger than this? Your mother dies suddenly. It echoes her previous abandonment of you thus making her death a double whammy. Your father proved to be incapable of being your father. You owe money to several large corporations who will squeeze you indefinitely. You spent six years writing a novel that may or may not get published. You got fired from your job. You say you want a family of your own but there doesn't seem to be a man in your life, and you may have fertility problems. I don't know, my friend. This is not nothing.' Of all his strange responses, this is the one that helps me the most. This is not nothing.

Cynnie’s disappeared while I’ve shut up shop. So has Ty, without even giving me a hug. He’s getting a dozen noogies for that the next time I see him. I lock up, checking and double-checking my security. On the way back from checking the manual lock on the fire escape door, I find the dress Cynnie was wearing draped across the foot of the staircase up into the loft like a fallen flower petal. “Baby?” Her wild giggle answers me. Grinning, I scoop up the dress and carry it up the stairs. I expect her to be n*ked in the bed, but she’s not. There’s no sign of her. “Baby, where are you?” Another wild giggle. With the open plan of my apartment, the stairwell, and the screen of trees in the loft, the acoustics can be weird. I was sure the first giggle came from upstairs. Now, it sounds like her giggle is coming from downstairs. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, bumble baby,” I call. Insane giggles. I spin around in place on the landing, trying to locate the source of those irresistible giggles. “When I find you, I’m going to b*te my bumble very hard on her b*ttom,” I growl. “I sting you!” That was definitely from my bedroom. I tear through the doorway and look around. No naughty bumble in my bed. I yank open the closet doors. No naughty bumble in my closets. There aren’t many hiding places in my bedroom. There’s no way she could fit between the trees. Then I spot the black rectangle half-hidden in the rumpled bedding. A phone. She’s put it on speaker and dimmed the screen. That sneaky little bee. I grab the phone and growl into it. “I’m going to find you.” “I fly away!” “You’ll never get away from me, little girl. And when I catch you, I’m going to eat you up.” I grip the phone, so turned on my hand shakes, muscles bunching. I pant into the phone. “I’m going to find you, wherever you are, and rail you into the ground.” She squees. There’s a very faint echo, and I realize where she is. Game on.

Trina, I never expected to fall in love again. I thought I got my shot, and I was okay with that, because I had my girls. I didn’t realize anything was missing. Then came you.” Ms. Rothschild’s hands are covering her mouth. She has tears in her eyes. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Trina.” Ms. Rothschild starts choking on her candy, and Daddy leaps up off his knee and starts pounding her on the back. She’s coughing like crazy. From his tree Peter whispers, “Should I go do the Heimlich on her? I know how to do it.” “Peter, my dad’s a doctor!” I whisper back. “He’s got it.” As her coughing subsides, she stands up straight and wipes her eyes. “Wait. Were you asking me to marry you?” “I was trying to,” Daddy says. “Are you all right?” “Yes!” She claps her hands to her cheeks. “Yes, you’re all right, or yes, you’ll marry me?” Daddy asks her, and he’s only half kidding. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” she screams, and Daddy reaches for her, and they kiss. “This feels private,” I whisper to Kitty. “It’s all part of the show,” she whispers back. Daddy hands Ms. Rothschild the ring box. I can’t quite make out what he says next, but whatever it was, it makes her double over laughing. “What’s he saying?” Kitty asks me, just as Peter says, “What did he say?” “I can’t hear! Both of you be quiet! You’re ruining the video!” Which is when Ms. Rothschild looks over in our direction. Shoot. We all pop back behind our respective trees, and then I hear Daddy’s wry voice call out, “You can come out, guys. She said yes!” We run out from behind the trees; Kitty launches herself into Ms. Rothschild’s arms. They fall over onto the grass, and Ms. Rothschild is laughing breathlessly, her laughter echoing through the woods. I hug Daddy, and meanwhile Peter’s still playing videographer, recording the moment for posterity like the good boyfriend he is. “Are you happy?” I ask, looking up at my dad. His eyes brimming with tears, he nods and hugs me tighter. And just like that, our little family grows bigger.

The odd curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor. Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing. It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts. He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.

What use is knowing anything if no one is around to watch you know it? Plants reinvent sugar daily and hardly anyone applauds. Once as a boy I sat in a corner covering my ears, singing Quranic verse after Quranic verse. Each syllable was perfect, but only the lonely rumble in my head gave praise. This is why we put mirrors in birdcages, why we turn on lamps to double our shadows. I love my body more than other bodies. When I sleep next to a man, he becomes an extension of my own brilliance. Or rather, he becomes an echo of my own anticlimax. I was delivered from dying like a gift card sent in lieu of a pound of flesh. My escape was mundane, voidable. Now I feed faith to faith, suffer human noise, complain about this or that heartache. The spirit lives in between the parts of a name. It is vulnerable only to silence and forgetting. I am vulnerable to hammers, fire, and any number of poisons. The dream, then: to erupt into a sturdier form, like a wild lotus bursting into its tantrum of blades. There has always been a swarm of hungry ghosts orbiting my body—even now, I can feel them plotting in their luminous diamonds of fog, each eying a rib or a thighbone. They are arranging their plans like worms preparing to rise through the soil. They are ready to die with their kind, dry and stiff above the wet earth.

The helix contains two intertwined strands of DNA. It is "right-handed"-twisting upward as if driven by a right-handed screw. Across the molecule, it measures twenty-three angstroms-one-thousandth of one-thousandth of a millimeter. One million helices stacked side by side would fit in this letter: o. the biologist John Sulston wrote, "We see it as a rather stubby double helix, for they seldom show its other striking feature: it is immensely long and thin. In every cell in your body, you have two meters of the stuff; if we were to draw a scaled-up picture of it with the DNA as thick as sewing thread, that cell's worth would be about 200 kilometers long." Each strand of DNA, recall, is a long sequence of "bases"-A,T,G,and C. The bases are linked together by the sugar-phosphate backbone. The backbone twists on the outside, forming a spiral. The bases face in, like treads in a circular staircase. The opposite strand contains the opposing bases: A matched with T and G matched with C. Thus, both strands contain the same information-except in a complementary sense: each is a "reflection," or echo, of the other (the more appropriate analogy is a yin-and-yang structure). Molecular forces between the A:T and G:C pairs lock the two strands together, as in a zipper. A double helix of DNA can thus be envisioned as a code written with four alphabets-ATGCCCTACGGGCCCATCG...-forever entwined with its mirror-image code.

When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian.( Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then — that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and — bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being — some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness — I find myself beginning with the letters gl when I try to imitate it — expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance — Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter. I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.

Then she bent her head over at the waist and tossed her head around to separate the curls. The elevator stopped and she heard the door open. She straightened up to find some big guy in a ball cap and sunglasses right in her face, charging into the elevator before she could even get out of it. He had both hands full of carry-out bags—Mexican food, judging from the smell. She looked at them, her mouth watering. Yep. Enrique’s. The best in town. He whirled around to punch the door-close button. “Hey,” she said. “I’m getting off here.” Some girl outside in the lobby yelled, “We know it’s you, Chase. You shouldn’t lie to us.” Startled, Elle looked at the guy’s face and saw, just before he reached for her, that it really was Chase Lomax in ragged shorts and flip-flops. He grabbed her up off her feet and bent his head. Found her mouth with his. “Wait for us,” another girl yelled. The sound of running feet echoed off the marble floor, slid to a stop. “Oh, no!” Kissing her, without so much as a “Hi, there, Elle.” Burning her up. She tried to struggle but he had both her arms pinned to her sides. And suddenly she wanted to stay right where she was forever because the shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. A lot more than she ever had before. The door slid closed. The girls began banging on it. “We know your room number, Chase, honey,” they yelled. “See you there.” Loud giggles. “We’ll show you a real good time.” The elevator moved up, the voices faded away. But Chase kept on kissing her. She had to make him stop it. Right now. Who did he think he was, anyway? Somebody who could send lightning right through her whole body, that’s who. Lightning so strong it shook her to her toes. He had to stop this now. But she couldn’t move any part of her body. Except her lips. And her tongue . . . When he finally let her go she pulled back and away, fighting to get a handle on her breathing. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. Her blood rushed through her so fast it made her dizzy. “You’re asking me? It’s more like, what’s the matter with you? How’d you get the idea you could get away with kissing me like that without even bothering to say hello?” She touched her lips. They were still on fire. “You have got a helluva nerve, Chase Lomax.” He grinned at her as he took off his shades. He hung them in the neck of his huge, baggy T-shirt that had a bucking bull and rider with Git’R’Done written above it. He wore ragged denim shorts and flip-flops, for God’s sake. Chase Lomax was known for always being starched and ironed, custom-booted and hatted. “I asked if you’re all right because you were bent over double shaking your head when the doors opened,” he said. “Like you were in pain or something.” “I was drying my hair.” He stared, then burst out laughing. “Oh, well, then.” His laugh was contagious but she wouldn’t let herself join in. He could not get away with this scot-free. He’d shaken her up pretty good. “Oh. I see. You thought I needed help, so you just grabbed me and kissed me senseless. Is that how you treat somebody you think’s in pain?” He grinned that slow, charming grin of his again. “It made you feel better. Didn’t it?” He held her gaze and wouldn’t let it go. She must be a sight. She could feel heat in her cheeks, so her face must be red. Plus she was gasping, trying to slow her breathing. And her heart-beat. “You nearly scared me to death to try to get rid of those girls. And it was all wasted. They’re coming to your room.” Something flashed deep in his brown eyes. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I don’t think it was wasted,” he drawled. “I liked that kiss.

To be single always determines to be double, which echoes the instinct.

An invigorating shower of soft florals, all the time with a watchful eye on the door. Only panicking when the shampoo temporarily obscures my vision, rinsing it through as quickly as if my life depends on it. Not long later, I leave the house, double-checking the locks. Not bad, a transformation from home-comfort clothes to a tailored azure dress. Softly applied make-up, coral lips. Elegant shoes with a sharp distinguishing echo. Finally, my files, mobile and diary. All in less than thirty minutes. Trepidation has its perverse benefits.

Double wingers over Hamburg , Germany from Double wingers, as two-winged aeroplanes were called, brought shouts of joy from children. “Flieger, Flieger,” was heard echoing in die Gassen or quaint, narrow streets of old Hamburg, little dreaming that in just a few short years airplanes would rain bombs on these very same children.

What’s your name?’ Richter asked, his voice quiet and controlled. ‘Murphy. Mike Murphy.’ The response came through clenched teeth as the wounded man clutched at his shattered shoulder. ‘Well, Mike, here’s the bad news. Some of us in British Intelligence,’ Richter said, echoing Murphy’s remarks, ‘don’t have scruples and don’t give a flying fuck for anybody’s rules. But what I don’t do is tell lies, so you’re getting the same two you doled out to Stein there.’ Richter altered his aim slightly and shot Murphy in the stomach. The assassin howled with pain and doubled up, falling to the ground. Richter stepped closer and ten seconds later Murphy fell silent permanently as Richter’s last bullet blew off the top of his head

Within minutes, I received a response with punctuation I had never seen before. “Hello (((Weisman))),” wrote “CyberTrump.” Nothing more. Just that. I was sitting at my desk at work. I had some time on my hands as an editor at the Times, since my responsibilities then centered on domestic policy—economics, the environment, poverty—and with the nation consumed in this strange presidential campaign, not a lot of policy making was going on. “Care to explain?” I answered, intuiting that my last name in those triple parentheses must somehow denote my Jewish faith. “What, ho, the vaunted Ashkenazi intelligence, hahaha!” “CyberTrump” came back. “It’s a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim.” With the cat belled, the horde followed. What I didn’t know was that I had unwittingly exposed what was known in the alt-right as “echoes,” those three parentheses that practitioners of online harassment wrapped around Jewish-sounding names on social media. Unbeknown to, well, just about everyone, alt-right anti-Semites had created a Google plug-in that could be used to search double or triple parentheses, since ordinary search engines do not pick up punctuation marks. Haters would slap these “echoes” around Jewish-sounding names of people online they wanted to target. Once a target was “belled,” the alt-right anti-Semitic mob could download the innocuous-sounding Coincidence Detector plug-in from the Google Chrome store, track down targets like heat-seeking missiles, then swarm. “You’ve all provoked us. You’ve been doing it for decades—and centuries even—and we’ve finally had enough,” declared Andrew Anglin, the creator and mastermind of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. “Challenge has been accepted.” And swarm they did.

He threw his head back and let his disbelief and fury break free. The sound was pain-filled and fearsome, the cry of a wounded beast. It reverberated through the trees, bouncing off the walls of the valley, the echoes doubling back into one agonized, unbroken roar.

She looked nice, he thought, when she was being enthusiastic and cheering him up, she looked young herself. It was when her face was discontented that she developed the pouting, double-chinned look of her mother—a woman who had been born disagreeable and lived to make life disagreeable for everyone round her until last year when she got a coronary right in the middle of complaining that she hadn’t got enough presents for her seventieth birthday.

Come, let’s get in the house. You never know with those savages. They’re just as likely to double back to catch us unaware.” The door to the cabin stood open, and Loretta followed the others inside. Turning, she faced the men, her eyes full of questions. Henry leaned his rifle against the all. “Ain’t no rhyme nor reason to what them critters do sometimes. I don’t reckon they’ll be back.” Tom, still standing by the window, frowned and shook his head, his gaze fastened on the lance in the yard. “I ain’t so sure. A Comanch’ don’t leave his mark just anywheres. Couldn’t have said it plainer. Loretta’s just got herself betrothed.” Amy giggled, a high, shrill laugh that echoed Loretta’s own feeling of unreality. “You mean he wants Loretta as a squaw? Why, that’d be worse than her marryin’ up with Mr. Wea--” Amy’s eyes bugged, and her cheeks flamed. “I mean…well…” “Hush, Amy!” Worrying her apron, Rachel shot Tom a questioning glance. “What makes you say such a thing?” “We all heard him lay claim to her and say he’d be back.” Tom avoided Loretta’s gaze. “Comanches don’t make false promises. My guess is he’ll bring a couple of blankets and a horse or two in trade. That’s the way they do things amongst themselves when they buy a wife. Not to say he’ll stay so polite if you don’t accommodate him and turn her over.” Rachel clamped a hand over her heart. “Oh, mercy, we’ve got to get Loretta out of here then, to Fort Belknap, perhaps.” “Ain’t no use, Rachel,” Tom said softly. “They’ll have sentries posted. You try to leave with her, and they’ll run you to the ground. Ain’t nobody gonna take a Comanche’s woman.

now, Kevin, you have to go back there. You don’t want her taking the house out from under you. I know you bought when the prices were low, but it’s worth an absolute fortune now. You won’t pick up anywhere for even double what you paid for that place.’ That was true. ‘Penny, I can’t talk about this now. There’s too much to sort out. I need to get clothes; can you help me?’ ‘Clothes?’ ‘Yes, are you turning into a bloody echo? I need socks and underwear, a couple of tops and jeans. Can you choose some clothes for me and I’ll pick them up in half an hour?’ ‘Of course, but, Kevin…’ Penny stopped talking. She was on commission. As far as Penny was concerned, you couldn’t have

I dream and drift, a double self, me and that woman … A great weariness becomes a black fire that consumes me … A great, passive yearning becomes the false life embracing me … Such a dull happiness! Being eternally at a point where two paths fork! I dream and behind me someone else is dreaming with me … Perhaps I am only the dream of that nonexistent Someone … Outside, the ever-distant dawn! The forest so intensely present to those other eyes of mine! When I’m far from that landscape, I almost forget it, and only when I have it here before me do I miss it, and only when I walk through it do I weep and long for it … The trees, the flowers, the secret, tree-thick paths! We would sometimes walk together, arm in arm, beneath the cedars and the Judas trees, and neither of us even gave a thought to living. Our flesh was a vague perfume and our life the echo of a bubbling spring. We would hold hands, and our eyes would wonder what it would be like to be a sensual being and to want to make flesh the illusion of love … In our garden there were flowers of every beautiful kind — roses with curled petals, white lilies tinged with yellow, poppies that would have been hidden had their red blush not betrayed their presence, a few violets on the crowded edges of the flower beds, tiny forget-me-nots, camellias barren of scent … And, erect above the tall grasses, the wide eyes of lone sunflowers would watch us.

But when you love someone—truly love them—you’re connected in a way that can never be severed. Even when they’re taken from you, years later, you still feel them, like an echo calling back to you. And a part of you is just a little bit glad for those moments, even when they nearly double you up.” An echo calling back to you.

REMEMBERING THE WORDS OF MY LATE FATHER The time is 03.16 am the UK time and I have been thinking of you lately, nyana kaBhixa, Mngwevu, Tshangisa, Zulu, Skhomo, Mhlatyana, Rudulu. I listen and hear nothing but the echoes of your words of wisdom and encouragement in my daily life. Your priceless love for me and my late sister was the most solid foundation for our lives and the most nourishment of our souls which is still the pillar of the unbeatable strength that helps me stand tall against all odds. You always told us that life is a double-edged sword, it’s beautiful and enjoyable but there are times when it stings like a bee and the best thing to do is to take a cautious approach and remember that there will always be some victories along the way. Here are some of your words that continue to give me the ability to navigate throughout the challenges of life: . Know who you are,never compromise and sell yourself short . Stay authentic and never change because authenticity stiffens your backbone. . Always stand up for the truth no matter how high is the cost . Never eat like there is no tomorrow because you will not be able to survive in the times of famine. . Never sit too close to the fire because not every place is always has that kind of comfort. . Be aware of your surroundings and make it the part of your daily routine. . Always try to pull yourself together and remember that there are places where your tears will mean nothing to certain people. . Always remember that you were created to overcome every obstacle and to rise above every challenge. And never keep silent in the presence of your adversaries. . Always remember to share the little you have with those who are in need. . Never be afraid to say no when you have to say so. I give God all the glory for the choice He made before the foundation of the earth for choosing you to be my earthly father and I’m grateful for the years He allowed us to spend together on this planet. Thank you so much Tata for being a good and faithful steward of my life and thank you for the spirit of resilience that runs through the veins of every Xhosa heart. Lala ngoxolo Tshangisa. Love you so much.

Mrs Touchet had long believed there was something in coincidence. She could not say what, exactly. Something. The mirroring of feeling or gesture, the echo of one thing in another. Fortuitous crossroads of time and place. The doubling of victories, and collisions of defeat.

He groaned. She groaned. They both groaned as he played with the nipple. There were no words exchanged between them, nothing but soft pants and moans of pleasure. And the splash as something hit the water. Then another something. The faint echo of a gunshot froze him. Shit. Someone was fucking shooting at them. “Take a deep breath,” was the only warning he gave before yanking Arabella underwater where they’d prove a more difficult target. Wide eyes met his under the surface. Kind of hard to explain. Only his great-uncle Clive had ever inherited the famous Johnson gills. Hayder got great hair. Since he couldn’t explain why it appeared he wanted to drown her, he kicked off. With her in tow, he scissor-kicked to the deep end of the pool by the waterfall. Having explored this place many a time when working off some energy, he knew the perfect spot to shelter while he figured out where the shooter was. And then we’ll catch ’em and eat ’em. It seemed Hayder wasn’t the only one peeved at the interruption. But still… We don’t eat people. Such a disappointed kitty. But catch the hunter and we’ll order the biggest rare steak they have in stock. With the red sauce stuff? A double order of the red wine reduction, he promised. Lungs burning, Hayder dragged them to the surface, behind the filtering screen of water cascading from above. The little hidden grotto made a great hiding spot. The shooter would have a hard time targeting them, and the water would also slow the bullet and throw off its aim. He knew they were more or less safe for the moment, but she didn’t. Soaked and scentless didn’t mean Hayder couldn’t sense the fear coming off Arabella. She remained tucked close to him, for once not sneezing. Small blessing because one of her ginoromous achoos might have caused quite the amplified echo. “Was someone shooting at us?” she whispered in his ear. Kind of funny since nothing could be heard above the falling splash of water “Yes. Someone was trying to get us.” Which meant heads would roll with whoever was on duty for security today. Exactly how had someone made it on to pride land with a loaded weapon? What kind of cowards hunted shifters with bullets? The kind who thought it was okay to beat a woman. Grrrr. Man, not lion, made the sound. It was also the man who made sure to tuck Arabella as deep as he could into the pocket, using himself as a body shield just in case the gunman got a lucky shot. The crashing of water, not to mention the echoes created by the recess, made it impossible to gauge what happened outside their watery grotto. Did the shooter approach? Did he know where they’d gone? Would he stick around long enough for Hayder to hunt him down and slap him silly? Only one way to find out.

He groaned. She groaned. They both groaned as he played with the nipple. There were no words exchanged between them, nothing but soft pants and moans of pleasure. And the splash as something hit the water. Then another something. The faint echo of a gunshot froze him. Shit. Someone was fucking shooting at them. “Take a deep breath,” was the only warning he gave before yanking Arabella underwater where they’d prove a more difficult target. Wide eyes met his under the surface. Kind of hard to explain. Only his great-uncle Clive had ever inherited the famous Johnson gills. Hayder got great hair. Since he couldn’t explain why it appeared he wanted to drown her, he kicked off. With her in tow, he scissor-kicked to the deep end of the pool by the waterfall. Having explored this place many a time when working off some energy, he knew the perfect spot to shelter while he figured out where the shooter was. And then we’ll catch ’em and eat ’em. It seemed Hayder wasn’t the only one peeved at the interruption. But still… We don’t eat people. Such a disappointed kitty. But catch the hunter and we’ll order the biggest rare steak they have in stock. With the red sauce stuff? A double order of the red wine reduction, he promised. Lungs burning, Hayder dragged them to the surface, behind the filtering screen of water cascading from above. The little hidden grotto made a great hiding spot. The shooter would have a hard time targeting them, and the water would also slow the bullet and throw off its aim. He knew they were more or less safe for the moment, but she didn’t. Soaked and scentless didn’t mean Hayder couldn’t sense the fear coming off Arabella. She remained tucked close to him, for once not sneezing. Small blessing because one of her ginoromous achoos might have caused quite the amplified echo. “Was someone shooting at us?” she whispered in his ear. Kind of funny since nothing could be heard above the falling splash of water “Yes. Someone was trying to get us.” Which meant heads would roll with whoever was on duty for security today. Exactly how had someone made it on to pride land with a loaded weapon? What kind of cowards hunted shifters with bullets? The kind who thought it was okay to beat a woman. Grrrr>/I>. Man, not lion, made the sound. It was also the man who made sure to tuck Arabella as deep as he could into the pocket, using himself as a body shield just in case the gunman got a lucky shot. The crashing of water, not to mention the echoes created by the recess, made it impossible to gauge what happened outside their watery grotto. Did the shooter approach? Did he know where they’d gone? Would he stick around long enough for Hayder to hunt him down and slap him silly? Only one way to find out.

The din of loud voices and the clatter of cutlery on plates echoed from out of the double doors to the Great Hall. It seemed incredible to Harry that twenty feet away were people who were enjoying dinner, celebrating the end of exams, not a care in the world...

I don’t know how long I sat there without moving, thinking, or breathing. It probably wasn’t as long as it felt, because the building where I sat had not crumbled into dust, and the sun had not turned cold and fallen from the sky. But it was still a very long time before a single jagged thought managed to penetrate the cold and empty vault between my ears, and when it finally did register I still couldn’t do any more than take a large and sharp breath and let that thought echo around all alone. Closer

Slowly the sick wet panic drains away, but the answers don’t flow in to take its place, and all the way home there is only one single thought repeating endlessly through my numb and shattered brain, one thought that tumbles and echoes through the dark stone halls of Dexter’s Dome. And no answer rises up to greet this thought and so it ricochets around in brittle confusion and repeats itself endlessly and as I finally park my car in front of my house I find that my lips are moving and repeating this same stupid single thought: What just happened?

Have you come to terms with your last moments yet?” asked Lady Lucina, whose designs for power were as eye-roll worthy as Coppelia's obvious excitement. Her shrill laugh opened the floodgates for the rest of the hall to join her. A mocking guffaw that echoed without end. “If not, please take a moment to admire the décor. Despite what I said, I may very well be forced to change it.” “Don't worry, I have this one,” said Coppelia, standing on her tip-toes as she turned to Lady Lucina. “Ahem … is it because of all our blood that's about to spill on it?” “What? No. We're the Smugglers Guild. Of course we'd know how to clean up blood. It's because double flannel is too heavy a fabric for spring. Single silk is more elegant and flutters beautifully to even the faintest breeze.” Coppelia turned to me. “I feel like my memory core has just been irreparably damaged.” “You only have yourself to blame.

Of all the echoing phrases in all the double talk of diplomacy, non-intervention is one the emptiest. There’s no such animal. If you see a man knock down a woman and you don’t knock down the man, you probably tell yourself you’re practicing the policy of non-intervention, but of course you’re doing no such thing. By failing to intervene on behalf of the woman, you are in fact intervening on behalf of the man.

Octo-Horse Pirate placed a hand on the hilt of his rapier. "And if I decide to fight you?" "Ha!" said Penelope. "You and what army?" "Why, this one, of course." Octo-Horse Pirate gave a whistle. Footsteps echoed from every direction as hundreds of figures stepped out of the shadows on the walls above and filled the perimeter of the courtyard. Several walked forward and stood next to Octo-Horse Pirate. Penelope's double was there, as were the doubles of the pirate crew. Anne thought she even recognized the faces of people she'd met during her first two quests, such as the villagers in the Black Desert and some of the guards from the Sapphire Palace. Every single one of them wore a dragon stone. Doppelgangers. Indeed, an entire army of them.

Too excited to hold it in, Sarah blurted out, “We’re going to Vegas to get married!” “Congratulations!” Handing the carrier over to Hugh, Grace hurried up the steps and hugged Sarah. “When?” “Now.” “Now?” At the echo of their previous conversation, Sarah laughed. “Yes, now. The pass is open, so we’re leaving while Gordon is still willing to watch Bean and Hortense.” “That’s great.” Hugh shook Otto’s hand and gave Sarah a one-armed hug as the puppies yipped in their carrier. At four weeks old, the pups were getting big—and even more adorable. “We could go, too.” Hugh gave Grace a hungry look. “Have a double wedding.” She made a big show of pretending to consider it and then shook her head. “I’m having too much fun dating you.” “C’mon, then, girlfriend.” Hugh ushered Grace into the house. “Let’s leave the lovebirds alone.

The closest echoes to this double command are found in 1 Maccabees 2.68. Mattathias is telling his sons, especially Judas, to get ready for revolution. ‘Pay back to the gentiles what is due to them,’ he says, ‘and keep the law’s commands.

For double X humans, our motley nature is usually less obvious, but we are genetic calicos. Every cell hosting a dormant sister. Every cell with the echo of what it could've been. Inside each of us, another animal, sleeping.

Love is a double-edged knife. Let's never hurt each other, because, my love, you will bleed, and so will I.

The incomprehensibility of Finnegans Wake seems to be close to this but only in opposing associations—there is a repeated sameness in the underlying story of the fall, and superficially a sameness in the sheer difficulty of the whole, but the noises it makes are in no way monotonous—echoes do generate echoes, and yet each one is distinct from the source, never a blunting blurriness but a sharpened shifting. Each element generates a double which separates miotically from what produced it, and often re-emerges at a distance, the sign that a series has begun.

...no mirror - no art. no echo - no music... we are doubles - without a mirror I would have never become a human being...

Modern capitalism and its spectacle allot everyone a specific role in a general passivity. The student is no exception to the rule. He has a provisional part to play, a rehearsal for his final role as an element in market society as conservative as the rest. Being a student is a form of initiation, an initiation which echoes the rites of more primitive societies with bizarre precision. It goes on outside of history, cut off from social reality. The student leads a double life, poised between his present status and his future role. The two are absolutely separate, and the journey from one to the other is a mechanical event “in the future.” Meanwhile, he basks in a schizophrenic consciousness, withdrawing into his initiation group to hide from that future. Protected from history, the present is a mystic trance.

Every day I text and e-mail while driving. Every day I speed. I’ve driven double the speed limit. I used to steal plates of cake out of the revolving glass tower in a deli. I knew where my parents kept their cash, and I stole money from them all through my childhood. I used to steal bulk candy every time I went into the grocery store. I drank underage. I drove a car before I had a license. We had scavenger hunts in college where we had to steal everything to win. I used a fake ID. I smoked pot. I used shrooms. I did cocaine. I took Ecstasy. I used speed. I took LSD. I’ve driven drunk. I snuck an animal through customs. I backed into a car in a parking lot and drove away. I’ve cheated on my income taxes. I forged a signature on a car title. I evaded police when they tried to pull me over. I forged a college degree to get a trade license. I bribed a police officer after I was caught drunk driving. I broke my car out of an impound lot and used a friend’s license plates to drive it home. I carried a revolver licensed to someone else in my backpack across my college campus. I took a credit card that had been left in the copy machine at Staples and charged two thousand dollars’ worth of stuff on it before I threw it away.

I took a step inside and fumbled for the light switch. It was so black-like the black water… Where was that switch? Just like the black water, with the orange flame flickering impossibly on top of it. The flame that couldn't be a fire, but what then…? My fingers traced the wall, still searching, still shaking- suddenly, something Marcel had told me this afternoon echoed in my head, finally sinking in… She took off into the water, he'd said. The bloodsuckers have the advantage there. That's why I raced home -I was afraid she was going to double back swimming. My hand froze in its searching, my whole body froze into place, as I realized why I recognized the strange orange color of the water. Maggie's hair, blowing wild in the wind, the color of fire… She'd been right there. Right there in the harbor with me and Marcel. If Sam hadn't been there if it had been just the two of us…? I couldn't breathe or move. The light flicked on, though my frozen hand had still not found the switch. I blinked at the sudden light and saw that someone was there, waiting for me. VISITOR UNNATURALLY STILL AND WHITE, WITH LARGE BLACK EYES intent on my face, my visitor waited perfectly motionless in the center of the halt, beautiful beyond imagining. My knees trembled for a second, and I nearly fell. Then I hurled myself at her. ‘Olivia, oh, Olivia!’ I cried as I slammed into her. I'd forgotten how hard she was; it was like running headlong into a wall of cement. ‘Bell?’ There was a strange mingling of relief and confusion in her voice. I locked my arms around her, gasping to inhale as much of the scent of her skin as possible. It wasn't like anything else-not floral or spice, citrus, and musk. No perfume in the world could compare. My memory hadn't done it justice. I didn't notice when the gasping turned into something else-I only realized I was sobbing when Olivia dragged me to the living room couch and pulled me into her lap. It was like curling up into a cool stone, but a stone that was contoured comfortingly to the shape of my body. She rubbed my back in a gentle rhythm, waiting for me to get control of myself. ‘I'm… sorry,’ I blubbered. ‘I'm just… so happy… to see you!’ ‘It's okay, Bell. Everything's okay.’ ‘Yes,’ I bawled. And, for once, it seemed that way. Olivia sighed. ‘I'd forgotten how exuberant you are,’ she said, and her tone was disapproving. I looked up at her through my streaming eyes. Olivia's neck was tight, straining away from me, her lips pressed together firmly. Her eyes were black as pitch. ‘Oh,’ I puffed, as I realized the problem. She was thirsty. And I smelled appetizing. It had been a while since I'd had to think about that. ‘Sorry.’ ‘It's my fault. It's been too long since I hunted. I shouldn't let myself get so thirsty. But I was in a hurry today.’ The look she directed at me then was a glare. ‘Speaking of which, would you like to explain to me how you're alive?’ That brought me up short and stopped the sobs. I realized what must have happened immediately, and why Olivia was here. I swallowed loudly, ‘you saw me fall.’ ‘No,’ she disagreed, her eyes narrowing. ‘I saw you jump.’ I pursed my lips as I tried to think of an explanation that wouldn't sound nuts.

Any person who is oppressed and heavy laden may be tempted to manipulate his situation to find an expedient political or practical solution. However, trusting in the Lord and waiting on Him in obedience brings lasting peace and comfort. Because they will not listen and refuse to hear God, they will wallow in confusion. The lies and double-speak of politicians and self-seeking leaders echo across the centuries.

doubled over and an old bobble-hat was hanging down between his knees.  Jamie took another look to see if he was okay, and spotted an empty vodka bottle between his heels against the curb.  She sighed and dragged her eyes back to the man and woman sitting by the fence. They looked up at Roper and Jamie and stopped talking.  As they drew closer the pair got up and walked away quickly without another word, keen to avoid any questions that might have been directed at them. Jamie and Roper didn’t bother calling out, and neither were prepared to chase them down.  They were both in their forties, and neither of them were Grace.  Roper paused at the fence and put his foot on it, craning his neck to see under the bridge beyond.  Long green tendrils looped their way down the bank, the jagged bramble leaves twisting gently in the autumn air.  The sky overhead had turned turbulent and grey, bruised raw by the incoming winter.  Jamie shivered and stepped past Roper, who didn’t seem inclined to make his way onto the loose bank in his old slick-bottom Chelsea boots. Jamie didn’t have that trepidation. She looked back as she stepped over the stained blanket, her deeply-teased heel crunching in the loose stone.  Roper was grimacing, staring down at the bridge and the tents under it.  Jamie could see by the look on his face that he was hoping she’d not ask him to follow. Sounds of conversation were echoing up and a thin blanket of smoke was clinging to the girders above. Someone was warming themselves. Some faces had already appeared in the openings to the little makeshift huts and shelters, peering out at the two newcomers — at the two outsiders.

Don't assume your elected officials have your best interest in mind. Read the entire book before you see the movie. Stop Instagramming your goddam twenty-dollar quinoa salad. Don't buy that new pair of pants. Go on a hike instead of watching the game. Don't get your history from the Walt Disney Company. Seek authenticity at whatever cost. Take difficult journeys of body and mind for no reason other than proving to yourself that they are possible. Double check the facts you take for granted. Form your own well-researched opinions. Take great pains not to add any more heartache to the world. Strive to see the impact of your actions as they echo in the universe beyond.

My favorite idea to come out of the world of cultured meat is the 'pig in the backyard.' I say 'favorite' not because this scenario seems likely to materialize but because it speaks most directly to my own imagination. In a city, a neighborhood contains a yard, and in that yard there is a pig, and that pig is relatively happy. It receives visitors every day, including local children who bring it odds and ends to eat from their family kitchens. These children may have played with the pig when it was small. Each week a small and harmless biopsy of cells is taken from the pig and turned into cultured pork, perhaps hundreds of pounds of it. This becomes the community's meat. The pig lives out a natural porcine span, and I assume it enjoys the company of other pigs from time to time. This fantasy comes to us from Dutch bioethicists, and it is based on a very real project in which Dutch neighbourhoods raised pigs and then debated the question of their eventual slaughter. The fact that the pig lives in a city is important, for the city is the ancient topos of utopian thought. The 'pig in the backyard' might also be described as the recurrence of an image from late medieval Europe that has been recorded in literature and art history. This is the pig in the land of Cockaigne, the 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' of its time, was a fantasy for starving peasants across Europe. It was filled with foods of a magnificence that only the starving can imagine. In some depictions, you reached this land by eating through a wall of porridge, on the other side of which all manner of things to eat and drink came up from the ground and flowed in streams. Pigs walked around with forks sticking out of backs that were already roasted and sliced. Cockaigne is an image of appetites fullfilled, and cultured meat is Cockaigne's cornucopian echo. The great difference is that Cockaigne was an inversion of the experience of the peasants who imagined it: a land where sloth became a virtue rather than a vice, food and sex were easily had, and no one ever had to work. In Cockaigne, delicious birds would fly into our mouths, already cooked. Animals would want to be eaten. By gratifying the body's appetites rather than rewarding the performance of moral virtue, Cockaigne inverted heaven. The 'pig in the backyard' does not fully eliminate pigs, with their cleverness and their shit, from the getting of pork. It combines intimacy, community, and an encounter with two kinds of difference: the familiar but largely forgotten difference carried by the gaze between human animal and nonhuman animal, and the weirder difference of an animal's body extended by tissue culture techniques. Because that is literally what culturing animal cells does, extending the body both in time and space, creating a novel form of relation between an original, still living animal and its flesh that becomes meat. The 'pig in the backyard' tries to please both hippies and techno-utopians at once, and this is part of this vision of rus in urbe. But this doubled encounter with difference also promises (that word again!) to work on the moral imagination. The materials for this work are, first, the intact living body of another being, which appears to have something like a telos of its own beyond providing for our sustenance; and second, a new set of possibilities for what meat can become in the twenty-first century. The 'pig in the backyard' is only a scenario. Its outcomes are uncertain. It is not obvious that the neighbourhood will want to eat flesh, even the extended and 'harmless' flesh, of a being they know well, but the history of slaughter and carnivory on farms suggests that they very well might. The 'pig in the backyard' is an experiment in ethical futures. The pig points her snout at us and asks what kind of persons we might become.

Echo stared at him, hands twitching into fists at her sides. As children, she and Ivy had taken to raiding the Ala's closet and parading about in her long, flowing gowns. More often than not, they were returned worse for wear. The Ala had given them both a stern talking-to and told them to never do it again. Naturally, Echo convinced Ivy to double their efforts. The Ala had figured out very early on that the fastest way to get Echo to do something was to tell her not to do it. Altairr had never paid her enough attention to learn that same lesson.

The study that I made of the whirlwind of language, of the other as a force drawing me toward a meaning, applies in the first place to the whirlwind of the other drawing me toward himself. It is not simply that I am fixed by the other, that he is the X by whom I am seen, frozen. He is the person spoken to, i.e., an offshoot of myself, outside, my double, my twin, because I make him do everything that I do and he makes me do the same. It is true that language is founded, as Sartre says, but not on an apperception; it is founded on the phenomenon of the mirror, ego-alter ego, or of the echo, in other words, of a carnal generality: what warms me, warms him; it is founded on the magical action of like upon like (the warm sun makes me warm), on the fusion of me embodied—and the world. This foundation does not prevent language from coming back dialectically over what preceded it and transforming the purely carnal and vital coexistence with the world and bodies into a coexistence of language.

Cassy walked up to Taylor and hugged her. “I’m really sorry about Tara. We’ll find her.” Taylor wiped her eyes. “Thank you.” Cassy looked into her eyes. “I mean it.” “I know you do.” “Where’s Corbin?” I asked Nichelle. “He went back to the hotel.” “Probably for the best,” I said. “He figured it would be.” Quentin, McKenna, and Tessa arrived a few minutes after us. No one spoke much. The sadness on their faces said it all. I texted my father. We’re here Almost immediately the loud buzz of an electronic lock echoed through the lobby, followed by a sharp metallic click, unlocking the glass door that opened to the elevators. I held the door while everyone walked inside. All ten of us crowded into one elevator. I pushed the button for the twelfth floor. My father and mother and the Ridleys were waiting for us as the door opened. Julie was crying. The two men wore grave expressions. Julie hugged Taylor as she got out of the elevator. “I’m so sorry, honey.” Taylor cried into her mother’s shoulder. My father said, “Let’s meet in the conference room.” We followed my dad down the hall to the glass double doors of a large conference room. He opened both doors, then gestured for us to enter. “Please, everyone, take a seat.” We sat down in the black leather seats that surrounded the polished mahogany table. The setting lent a stark formality to the gathering. Taylor and her mother were the last to enter. Even though I had kept a seat for Taylor, she sat down at the opposite end of the table next to her mother. After everyone was seated, my father said, “I understand that you’ve all been briefed on Jack and Grace. I can answer more questions about that later, but right now Tara’s abduction is our most time-sensitive issue.” He looked around the table. “Just to be clear, our first priority is to make sure that we don’t lose anyone else.” “I’ve already told everyone to stay in pairs,” I said.