Flashing Birthday Quotes

He does, and his eyes shoot to mine, wide and gray, alive with wonder and joy. His lip part in disbelief. The word YES flashes on and off on the key ring. "Happy birthday", I whispered.

A BIRTHDAY Something continues and I don't know what to call it though the language is full of suggestions in the way of language but they are all anonymous and it's almost your birthday music next to my bones these nights we hear the horses running in the rain it stops and the moon comes out and we are still here the leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passed smell of ginger flowers slips through the dark house down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you I keep wanting to give you what is already yours it is the morning of the mornings together breath of summer oh my found one the sleep in the same current and each waking to you when I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see.

An image of my son’s innocent, little girlfriend wearing this flashes in my head, and I round my eye, rearing back a little. “Fuck. I’m gonna go to hell.

When she was a teenager, the 1980s had felt far away, a lifetime ago, but now, when she was so many more decades ahead, 1996 still felt recent. The first twenty years of her life had gone by in slow motion--the endless summers, the space from birthday to birthday almost immeasurable--but the second twenty years had gone by in a flash. Days could still be slow, of course, but weeks and months and sometimes even years zipped along, like a rope slipping through your hands.

Thanks to all the moving around Mom and I had done, I hadn't had a birthday party since I was eight years old. That had been at Chuck E. Cheese. Something told me the Council had something more elaborate in mind. "They don't need to do that," I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. "Especially with all that's going on right now." Nick flashed me a wolfish grin. "That's Prodigium for you. Very 'fiddle while Rome burns.

And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself What would we do with an unpredictable, Powerful, bounding fox? That long-mouthed, flashing temperament? That necessary nightly twenty miles And that vast hunger for everything beyond us? How would we cope with its cosmic derangements Whenever we moved? ...If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage-- I would not have failed the test.

Unable to swim, he had maneuvered to fall off an old-timers’ party yacht in the Hudson River. His departure was not remarked by the revelers. They motored on toward the Atlantic and he bobbed around in the wash. He couldn’t swim. But he did. He learned how. Before he knew it, he was making time and nearing the dock where a small Italian liner sat dead still, white, three stories high. Nobody was around when he pulled up on a stray rope on the wharf and walked erect to the street, where cars were flashing. Day after tomorrow was his seventieth birthday. What a past, he said. I’ve survived. Further, I’m horny and vindictive. Does the fire never stop?

The last few strokes filled me with searing heat, electric pulses surging through my body and my soul, as our orgasms burst forth together, a million nerve endings suddenly flashing like twin rockets exploding fireworks, the multitude of sparks joining with a billion stars in the heavens above.

For my eleventh birthday, Mom and Dad gave me my camera, the vintage one you already know about, with a purple strap and an old-school flash and an aperture that you rotate by hand. All the kids at school use their phones as cameras—but I wanted something solid, something real. It was love at first

One quick glance around the room and I realise that I have somehow stumbled into a wannabe serial killer convention. Every single person in the room looks as if they are concealing a weapon of some sort. My heart thuds rapidly in my chest as I sneak past an elderly man who grins lecherously at me, flashing his gold tooth. Oh dear God, I’m going to die! First, I get dumped – on my birthday no less – and now I’m going to get knifed in some seedy bar!

Liam wasn't really one for wishes, but if he were...If he were he wouldn't want to wish on birthday candles, or shooting stars, or airplanes parading as something magical. He'd wish on a castle and a flash of purple and a smile that made his stomach turn in all the best ways.

How did you finally manage to get expelled?” He flashes me that scrumptiously wicked smirk. “Expelled? I like the way you think. But I didn’t have to get expelled. I turned eighteen yesterday and before the wax could even melt on my birthday candles, I dropped out, and voila! Here I am.

Grandfather died a few days after his hundredth birthday. Both Father and I were there at the end, in the room where I'd been born, forty-four years ago. It was not unlike that day, with sunlight streaming through the windows, and hummingbirds hovering outside, iridescent sun-glittering flashes of jewels. A dove was calling, back in the cool shade. Grandfather's hand was cool, as cool as the river. He tried to sit up to look out at the sunlight. "Sycamores grow by running water," he sang, "cottonwoods by still water," and then he died, and I felt a century slip away.

The last few strokes filled me with searing heat, and electric pulses traveled through my body and my soul, as our orgasms burst forth together, a million nerve endings suddenly flashing like twin rockets exploding fireworks, the multitude of sparks joining with a billion stars in the heavens above.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

The Tender Place Your temples , where the hair crowded in , Were the tender place. Once to check I dropped a file across the electrodes of a twelve-volt battery -- it exploded Like a grenade. Somebody wired you up. Somebody pushed the lever. They crashed The thunderbolt into your skull. In their bleached coats, with blenched faces, They hovered again To see how you were, in your straps. Whether your teeth were still whole . The hand on the calibrated lever Again feeling nothing Except feeling nothing pushed to feel Some squirm of sensation . Terror Was the cloud of you Waiting for these lightnings. I saw An oak limb sheared at a bang. You your Daddy's leg . How many seizures Did you suffer this god to grab you By the roots of the hair? The reports Escaped back into clouds. What went up Vaporized? Where lightning rods wept copper And the nerve· threw off its skin Like a burning child Scampering out of the bomb-flash. They dropped you A rigid bent bit of wire Across the Boston City grid. The lights In the Senate House dipped As your voice dived inwards Right through the bolt-hole basement. Came up, years later, Over-exposed, like an X-ray -- Brain-map still dark-patched With the scorched-earth scars Of your retreat . And your words , Faces reversed from the light , Holding in their entrails.

My mind drifted to my last birthday. I had concealed the day away, hoping no one would find out. I realized as the sun flashed across the room that I had done that to escape disappointment. What if someone had known but still found it unworthy of celebration? What if, in fact, I really didn't matter outside of my cooking? Each day I justified my life through purpose.

Zenosyne. It's actually just after you're born that life flashes before your eyes. Entire aeons are lived in those first few months when you feel inseparable from the world itself, with nothing to do but watch it passing by. At first, time is only felt vicariously, as something that happens to other people. You get used to living in the moment, because there's nowhere else to go. But soon enough, life begins to move, and you learn to move with it. And you take it for granted that you're a different person every year, Upgraded with a different body...a different future. You run around so fast, the world around you seems to stand still. Until a summer vacation can stretch on for an eternity. You feel time moving forward, learning its rhythm, but now and then it skips a beat, as if your birthday arrives one day earlier every year. We should consider the idea that youth is not actually wasted on the young. That their dramas are no more grand than they should be. That their emotions make perfect sense, once you adjust for inflation. For someone going through adolescence, life feels epic and tragic simply because it is: every kink in your day could easily warp the arc of your story. Because each year is worth a little less than the last. And with each birthday we circle back, and cross the same point around the sun. We wish each other many happy returns. But soon you feel the circle begin to tighten, and you realize it's a spiral, and you're already halfway through. As more of your day repeats itself, you begin to cast off deadweight, and feel the steady pull toward your center of gravity, the ballast of memories you hold onto, until it all seems to move under its own inertia. So even when you sit still, it feels like you're running somewhere. And even if tomorrow you will run a little faster, and stretch your arms a little farther, you'll still feel the seconds slipping away as you drift around the bend. Life is short. And life is long. But not in that order.

We lived here for a while, after my father died,’ Iris says. Esme has to swallow once, twice before she can speak, and it hurts her throat. ‘How did he die?’ she asks. ‘Oh, it was stupid. A stupid accident. He was in hospital for a routine operation and he was given a drug he was allergic to. He was young, only thirty-one.’ Esme gets flashes of this scene. She thinks she has seen this, or something like it. When? She can’t recall. But she remembers the convulsions, the thrashing body, the lolling tongue, and then the awful stillness. She has to concentrate on her plate to get rid of them. ‘That’s very sad,’ she says, and speaking the words is good because it distracts her mind into thinking about forming the syllables. ‘My parents were already separated by the time he died so I didn’t see him much, but I still miss him. It would have been his birthday next week.

-Wait, Anna, do you hear it? Listen" "-What is it?" It sounds like barking. "-Look- seals." She points about thirty feet down the share where a dozen or so brown lumps wriggle and play in the sand, barking like some kind of water dogs, "-Wow", I breath. "I'm changing my answer." "Anna, What's the number one coolest thing you've ever seen in your life?" He asked me on night, about a week after my birthday, when We saw three shooting stars in a row behind his house. It was after midnight, and everyone was asleep but the crickets. I remember telling him about this crazy lighting storm I saw when I was ten. It was far away but I could see the rain billowing out in sails and sheets, all the dark blue-gray sky lit up in flash after flash after flash. "What's yours?" "It's always been the ocean. but I'm thinking about changing my answer." He didn't say anything after that. He just looked at my eyes for a long, long time, missing all the stars above Us until it was too light to see them anyway. "-What answer?" Frankie asks. "-Seals. The seals are officially the number one coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

She fell asleep within minutes, unaware that the rain that had been falling since evening had turned to sleet, or that the roads were becoming impassable. As she slept, she began to dream, but instead of a continuous scene, it consisted of images flashing through her mind, like looking at old pictures in an album. Cat was sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother was standing beside her, laughing as she set a birthday cake in front of her. There were four candles on her cake, and her daddy was taking a picture. “Smile,” he’d said. She looked up just as the flash went off. She was still blinking from the flash when the image shifted. It was cold. The blowing wind burned her skin. She was at a cemetery, staring down at a small, flat marker. Cat couldn’t read, but somehow she knew it bore hermother’s name. She could hear her father crying. It scared her worse than the fact that her mother had gone away. “Daddy…where did she go?” “Heaven.” “Is it far?” “Yes.” “Can we go, too?” She never heard his answer, because the image shifted again. This time, she was being led through a long series of hallways. The smell of orange oil from wood polish burned her nose. The sound of her footsteps echoed on the tiled floors. Yesterday she’d been in the hospital. She’d asked to go home. But someone had told her she couldn’t go home because there was no one left to take care of her. The horror of that knowledge had frightened her so much that she’d been afraid to ask what came next. She walked through an open door as a woman said her name. The woman took her by the hand, and they walked away. She couldn’t see the woman’s face. She never remembered the faces, and it didn’t matter, because they never stayed the same.

Part of you liked him," Jack said, giving her an intent stare. "I could see it in your writing." She smiled uncomfortably. "Well, in the realm of fantasy, I suppose I did. But certainly not in reality." The hand behind her neck closed in a gentle but secure grip. "Then here is your birthday present, Amanda. A night of fantasy." He loomed over her, his head and broad shoulders obliterating the firelight as he bent to kiss her. "Wait," Amanda said in a flash of panic, turning her head as Jack's mouth approached hers. His lips pressed on her cheek, a brush of intimate heat that astonished her. "Wait," she said again, her voice wobbling. Her face was turned full toward the fire, its yellow glow dazzling her eyes as she sought to avoid the stranger's exploring kisses. His mouth moved gently over her cheek and toward her ear, tickling the tiny wisps of hair just above it.

Is it too early to ask what you’ll be doing for your birthday?” Celaena crossed her arms. “We have plans,” she said before Chaol could reply. She didn’t mean to sound so sharp, but—well, she’d been planning the night for a few weeks now. Chaol looked at her over a shoulder. “We do?” Celaena gave him a venomously sweet smile. “Oh, yes. It might not be an Asterion stallion, but …” Dorian’s eyes flashed. “Well, I hope you have fun,” he interrupted.

A few years from now, far away from here, a young woman will be sitting on a sofa at a party. Everyone around will be dancing and drinking but his eyes will be glued to the television. It's just a short clip from concert by one of the country's most female performers right now. Her name is Maya Andersson, and the young man has always loved that name. How ordinary it sounds. He's never thought about her accent, has never reflected upon why it sound so familiar to hin, But now he sees her on television and she's singing a song about someone she loved,because it's hit birthday, and on the huge screen behind ger a photograph of him flashes up for moment. She knows no one will really see it, a thousand more images flash past right after it, she just inclided that particular photograph for her own sake. But he man on sofa recognizes it. Because he remembers fingertips and glances. Beer bottles on a worn bar counter and smoke in a silent forest. The way snow feels as it falls on your skin while a boy with sad eyes and a wild heart teaches you to skate. The man on the sofa pack almost nothing. He takes just a light bag and the case containing his bass guitar and travels to the next town on Maya's tour. He elbows past her security guard and almost gets knocked to the floor and he he calls out: "I knew him! I knew Benji! I loved him too!" Maya stops mid-stride. They look each other in the eye and see only him, the boy in the forest, sad and wild. "Do you play?" May asks. "I'm a bass player," he says. From then on he is her bass player. No one plays her songs like he does. No one else cries as much each night.

A man is dead,” Janvier snapped, dark eyes flashing. “Struck down like a dog by a killer. Shot to death. Which is horrible. But, not as heinous as beating a man to death with a shovel, no?

Dunce is completely bald and has a really pointed head so the temptation to get him paralytic on his thirtieth birthday, carry him to the tattooist’s and get a nice big ‘D’ smack bang in the middle of his forehead was too much for me. Trouble is he can’t afford to have it removed so he wears a big plaster over it. Gangs of children tease him. ‘What’s underneath the plaster, mister? Show us!’ They swear he has a third eye under there. My name is Bill but Dunce calls me ‘Fez’ on account of my hat. I’ve known Dunce for over sixteen years.

Amy suddenly rushed into the room. “You know those binoculars Dad gave Joe for his birthday last year?” Mrs Mitchell nodded. “Yes, what about them?” “They’re gone, as well as his torch and shoes,” Amy replied. “So he must be outside.” Just as she finished speaking, lightning flashed across the sky. A moment later, thunder rumbled.

Brandy stood up and tossed the bits of eggshell to the ground. She flashed Mom her best dimpled smile. “Next year for my birthday, can we have a Make Your Own Ice-Cream Sundae party?

Trish had to tell her they were mine or her mother would probably have killed her.” Then she’s up again. “Do you know what I really wanted to show you? It’s here somewhere.” She’s pulling open drawers, humming to herself. Then she swings around. “Do you remember this?” A gold-and-lapis pendant, the size of a silver dollar. I’d forgotten how ’90s it looks, which I suppose is back in fashion. My niece has threaded it onto a gold chain, which she fastens around her neck. “I wish I had a picture of her wearing it.” Something to match the color of your eyes, our mom had said when she gave it to Emily for her sixteenth birthday. I found it just before Hannah left. Somehow it had made its way back into Mom’s jewelry box. They were always sharing things. Your mother wore it all the time when she was your age, I had told Hannah. And I remember there hadn’t been time to find a box, I had wrapped it in old tissue paper. “Isn’t this chain perfect?” my niece says, fingering it. “It’s eighteen karat.” The pendant glints in the light, and I’m reminded of all the times it flashed on my sister’s jean jacket or smock dresses. I feel a little light-headed. Something about seeing this young version of my sister—with her confidence, her mannerisms.

Gus Simpson adored birthday cake. Chocolate, coconut, lemon, strawberry, vanilla- she had a particular fondness for the classics. Even though she experimented with new flavors and frostings, drizzling with syrups and artfully arranging hibiscus petals, Gus more often took the retro route with piped-on flowers or a flash of candy sprinkles across the iced top. Because birthday cake was really about nostalgia, she knew, about reaching in and using the senses to remember one perfect childhood moment. After twelve years as a host on the CookingChannel- and with three successful shows to her credit- Gus had made many desserts in her kitchen studios, from her creamy white chocolate mousse to her luscious peach torte, her gooey caramel apple cobbler and her decadent bourbon pecan pie.

They both laughed, and then Maude surprised herself by saying, "You've been a good friend, Brien, for longer than I can remember. You helped me get through the worst time of my life, and I never thanked you . . . not until now." She did not need to elaborate; he understood. Their memories were suddenly functioning as one, taking them back more than thirteen years. She had been twenty-five, and no longer able to resist her father's will, agreeing at last to wed Geoffrey of Anjou. On her betrothal journey from England to Normandy, the old king had entrusted her to the custody of his eldest son, Robert, and his foster son, Brien. They had carried out the king's charge, escorted Maude to Rouen for the plight troth, and the following year she and Geoffrey had been wed at Le Mans. "Why should you thank me? I did as the king bade, turned you over to Geoffrey of Anjou, when I ought to have hidden you away where he never could have found you." Maude was started. "You did what you could, Brien, you made me feel--without a word being said-- that you understood, that you were on my side. That may not sound like much, but it was." "If I had it to do over again . . ." His smile held no humor, just a disarming flash of self-mockery. "I suppose I'd do the same, however much I'd like to think I would not. But my regrets would be so much greater, knowing as I do now how miserable he'd make you. I never forgave your father for that, for forcing you to wed a man so unworthy of you--" He stopped abruptly, and a tense, strained silence followed, which neither of them seemed able to break. Maude was staring at Brien, a man she'd known all her life, and seeing a stranger. Had she lost her wits altogether? How could she have confided him him like this ? She'd long ago learned to keep her fears private, her pain secret, all others at a safe distance, yet here in a barren winter garden, she'd lowered her defenses, allowing Brien to get a glimpse into her very soul. Even worse, she'd seen into his soul, too, discovered what she ought never to have known. She felt suddenly as flustered as a raw, green girl, she who was a widow, wife, and a mother, a woman just a month shy of her thirty-ninth birthday, a woman who could be queen.

Because it was the fate of the damned to run of course, not jog, run, their piss on fire and their shit molten, boiling sperm and their ovaries frying; what they were permitted of body sprinting at full throttle, wounded gallop, burning not fat—fat sizzled off in the first seconds, bubbled like bacon and disappeared, evaporate as steam, though the weight was still there, still with you, its frictive drag subversive as a tear in a kite and not even muscle, which blazed like wick, but the organs themselves, the liver scorching and the heart and brains at flash point, combusting the chemistries, the irons and phosphates, the atoms and elements, conflagrating vitamin, essence, soul, yet somehow everything still within the limits if not of endurance then of existence. Damnation strictly physical, nothing personal, Hell’s lawless marathon removed from character. ‘Sure,’ someone had said, ‘we hit the Wall with every step. It’s all Wall down here. It’s wall-to-wall Wall. What, did you think Hell would be like some old-time baker’s oven? That all you had to do was lie down on a pan like dough, the insignificant heat bringing you out, fluffing you up like bread or oatmeal cookies? You think we’re birthday cake? We’re fucking stars. Damnation is hard work, eternity lousy hours.

You ever go to one of those arcade pizza joints as a child? You’re usually there because it’s some other kid’s birthday, or worse, because your parent hates raising you so much they’d do anything just to keep you distracted for ten minutes in exchange for a pitcher of watered-down beer. The whole place is chaos. There’s flashing lights, blaring music, a colorful carpet that hides the vomit stains. Not to mention the norovirus-infested ball pit, the rickety merry-go-round, the workers with dead eyes, and the pizza that tastes like it was cooked in a Soviet-era microwave? All the while an animatronic rodent holds court on stage, blinking and rotating and telling you that he is now your god.