Guts Over Fear Quotes

Reality is what I make it. That is what I have said I believed. Then I look at the hell I am wallowing in, nerves paralyzed, action nullified - fear, envy, hate: all the corrosive emotions of insecurity biting away at my sensitive guts. Time, experience: the colossal wave, sweeping tidal over me, drowning, drowning. How can I ever find that permanence, that continuity with past and future, that communication with other human beings that I crave? Can I ever honestly accept an artificial imposed solution? How can I justify, how can I rationalize the rest of my life away?

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

A tingling mix of excitement and fear ran over her skin, and a deep feeling of familiarity and recognition settled in her gut, as if she had at last come home

There’s all kinds of ways to die, and most of them don’t involve actual death, just the handing over of the soul to fear and anger and greed. Or despair. Very few people have the guts to deal with life on life’s terms.

Niphon, standing with a glass of wine, regarded me with curious amusement as I headed straight for him.Considering I usually avoided him if it all possible, my approach undoubtedly astonished him. But not as much as when I punched him. I didn’t even need to shape-shift much bulk into my fist. I’d caught him by surprise. The wineglass fell out of his hand, hitting the carpet and spilling its contents like blood. The imp flew backward, hitting Peter’s china cabinet with a crash. Niphon slumped to the floor, eyes wide with shock. I kept coming. Kneeling, I grabbed his designer shirt and jerked him toward me. “Stay the fuck out of my life, or I will destroy you,” I hissed. Terror filled his features. “Are you out of your fucking mind? What do you—” Suddenly, the fear disappeared. He started laughing. “He did it, didn’t he? He broke up with you. I didn’t know if he could do it, even after giving him the spiel about how it’d be better for both of you. Oh my. This is lovely. All your so-called charms weren’t enough to—ahh!” I’d pulled him closer to me, digging my nails into him, and finally, I felt an emotion. Fury. Niphon’s role had been greater than I believed. My face was mere inches from his. “Remember when you said I was nothing but a backwoods girl from some gritty fishing village? You were right. And I had to survive in gritty circumstances—in situations you’d never be able to handle. And you know what else? I spent most of my childhood gutting fish and other animals.” I ran a finger down his neck. “I can do it for you too. I could slit you from throat to stomach. I could rip you open, and you’d scream for death. You’d wish you weren’t immortal. And I could do it over and over again.” That wiped the smirk off Niphon’s face.

That gut feeling is your intuition. Listen up more. When you feel something over and over, it’s your truth echoing the direction towards your unique path. Release the fears and follow it…

Man comes into the world a blind, groping mite. He knows hunger and the fear of noise and of falling. His life is spent in flight - flight from hunger and from the thunderbolt of destiny. From his moment of birth he begins to fall through the whistling air of Time: down, down into a chasm of darkness . . . we come like a breath of wind over the fields of morning. We go like a lamp flame caught by a blast from a darkened window. In between we journey from table to table, from battle to bottle, from bed to bed. We suck, we chew, we swallow, we lick, we try to mash life into us like an am-am-amoeba God damn it! Somebody lets us loose like a toad out of a matchbox and we jump and jump and jump and the guy always behind us, and when he gets tired he stomps us to death and our guts squirt out on each side of the boot of All Merciful Providence. The son-of-a-bitch!

The light was crude. It made Artaud's eyes shrink into darkness, as they are deep-set. This brought into relief the intensity of his gestures. He looked tormented. His hair, rather long, fell at times over his forehead. He has the actor's nimbleness and quickness of gestures. His face is lean, as if ravaged by fevers. His eyes do not seem to see the people. They are the eyes of a visionary. His hands are long, long-fingered. Beside him Allendy looks earthy, heavy, gray. He sits at the desk, massive, brooding. Artaud steps out on the platform, and begins to talk about " The Theatre and the Plague." He asked me to sit in the front row. It seems to me that all he is asking for is intensity, a more heightened form of feeling and living. Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theater came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself? But then, imperceptibly almost, he let go of the thread we were following and began to act out dying by plague. No one quite knew when it began. To illustrate his conference, he was acting out an agony. "La Peste" in French is so much more terrible than "The Plague" in English. But no word could describe what Artaud acted out on the platform of the Sorbonne. He forgot about his conference, the theatre, his ideas, Dr. Allendy sitting there, the public, the young students, his wife, professors, and directors. His face was contorted with anguish, one could see the perspiration dampening his hair. His eyes dilated, his muscles became cramped, his fingers struggled to retain their flexibility. He made one feel the parched and burning throat, the pains, the fever, the fire in the guts. He was in agony. He was screaming. He was delirious. He was enacting his own death, his own crucifixion. At first people gasped. And then they began to laugh. Everyone was laughing! They hissed. Then, one by one, they began to leave, noisily, talking, protesting. They banged the door as they left. The only ones who did not move were Allendy, his wife, the Lalous, Marguerite. More protestations. More jeering. But Artaud went on, until the last gasp. And stayed on the floor. Then when the hall had emptied of all but his small group of friends, he walked straight up to me and kissed my hand. He asked me to go to the cafe with him.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

What I was really thinking was: Don’t even for a minute think I’m vanilla because the truth is I am so hardcore I had to quit. I drank so much it was a matter of life and death. I’m like a rock star compared with you… you should look at me with a touch of fear and awe because I am such a badass you would quiver just to think about the amount of rot gut I’ve ingested over the years. So step off with your preconceived notions, okay?

And I am absolutely intellectually able to agree, yes, all of this great crashing wave of negative feeling is not actually being caused by the things I am pinning it to. This is something generated by my biochemistry, grown in my basal brain and my liver and my gut and let loose to roam like a faceless beast about my body until it reaches my cognitive centres, which look around for the worry du jour and pin that mask on it. I know that, while I have real problems in the world, they are not causing the way I feel within myself, this crushing weight, these sudden attacks of clenching fear, the shakes, the wrenching vertiginous horror that doubles me over. These feelings are just recruiting allies of convenience from my rational mind, like a mob lifting up a momentary demagogue who may be discarded a moment later in favour of a better. Even in the grip of my feelings I can still acknowledge all this, and it doesn’t help. Know thyself, the wise man wrote, and yet I know myself, none better, and the knowledge gives me no power.

Sympathies and antipathies . . . Human friendships can very quickly become a club of mediocrities, enclosed in mutual flattery and approval, preventing people from seeing their inner poverty and wounds. Friendship is then no longer a spur to grow . . . Scott Peck talks of pseudo-communities. These are where people pretend to live community. Everybody is polite and obeys the rules and regulations. They speak in platitudes and generalities. But underlying it all is an immense fear of conflict, a fear of letting out the monsters. If people start truly to listen to each other and to get involved, speaking from their guts, their anger and fears may rise up and they might start hitting each other over the head with frying pans. There are so many pent-up emotions contained in their hearts that if these were to start surfacing, God knows what might happen! It would be chaos. But from that chaos, healing could come. . . They discover that they have all been living in a state of falsehood. And it is then that the miracle of community can happen!

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like, “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of “life” when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe: the boring switch from chronic constipation to its sudden dramatic opposite; the equally nasty double cross of feeling acute hunger while fearing even the scent of food; the absolute misery of gut–wringing nausea on an utterly empty stomach; or the pathetic discovery that hair loss extends to the disappearance of the follicles in your nostrils, and thus to the childish and irritating phenomenon of a permanently runny nose. Sorry, but you did ask... It’s no fun to appreciate to the full the truth of the materialist proposition that I don’t have a body, I am a body. But it’s not really possible to adopt a stance of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” either. Like its original, this is a prescription for hypocrisy and double standards. Friends and relatives, obviously, don’t really have the option of not making kind inquiries. One way of trying to put them at their ease is to be as candid as possible and not to adopt any sort of euphemism or denial. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five. Quite rightly, some take me up on it. I recently had to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to attend my niece’s wedding, in my old hometown and former university in Oxford. This depressed me for more than one reason, and an especially close friend inquired, “Is it that you’re afraid you’ll never see England again?” As it happens he was exactly right to ask, and it had been precisely that which had been bothering me, but I was unreasonably shocked by his bluntness. I’ll do the facing of hard facts, thanks. Don’t you be doing it too. And yet I had absolutely invited the question. Telling someone else, with deliberate realism, that once I’d had a few more scans and treatments I might be told by the doctors that things from now on could be mainly a matter of “management,” I again had the wind knocked out of me when she said, “Yes, I suppose a time comes when you have to consider letting go.” How true, and how crisp a summary of what I had just said myself. But again there was the unreasonable urge to have a kind of monopoly on, or a sort of veto over, what was actually sayable. Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self–centered and even solipsistic.

However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves. The more people try to push away and ignore internal warning signs, the more likely they are to take over and leave them bewildered, confused, and ashamed. People who cannot comfortably notice what is going on inside become vulnerable to respond to any sensory shift either by shutting down or by going into a panic — they develop a fear of fear itself.

He remembered the black sands beach along California’s lost coast where his mother finally gave up the fight. He hadn’t even realized she’d been injured so badly after running into his father in Seattle. She’d bled most of the way though Oregon, but he hadn’t thought it was serious. He hadn’t known she was bleeding out on the inside, a kidney and her liver ruptured, her intestines bruised beyond repair. […] They stopped six feet from the tide and she made him repeat every promise she’d ever dragged out of him: don’t look back, don’t slow down, and don’t trust anyone. Be anyone but himself, and never be anyone for too long. By the time Neil understood she was saying goodbye, it was too late. She died gasping for one more breath, panting with something that might have been words or his name or fear. Neil could still feel her fingernails digging into his arms as she fought not to slip away, and the memory left him shaking all over. Her abdomen felt like stone when he touched her, swollen and hard. He tried pulling her from her seat only once, but the sound of her dried blood ripping off the vinyl like Velcro killed him. […] He hadn’t cried when the flames caught, and he hadn’t flinched when he pulled her cooling bones out. […] By the time he found the highway again he was numb with shock, and he lasted another day before he fell to his knees on the roadside and puked his guts out.

You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in "spiritual direction". Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters. If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like "spiritual direction"? Why not just "friend"? Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand. The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life. Or maybe the right label for my fear is "functionalism". The moment an aspect of Christian living (human life, for that matter) is defined as a role, it is distorted, debased - and eventually destroyed. We are brothers and sisters with one another, friends and lovers, saints and sinners. The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction. But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing. Instead, why don't you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so - you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn't have to say anything "wise". You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. After three or four such meetings, write to me what has transpired, and we'll discuss it further. I've had a number of men and women who have served me in this way over the years - none carried the title "spiritual director", although that is what they have been. Some had never heard of such a term. When I moved to Canada a few years ago and had to leave a long-term relationship of this sort, I looked around for someone whom I could be with in this way. I picked a man whom I knew to be a person of integrity and prayer, with seasoned Christian wisdom in his bones. I anticipated that he would disqualify himself. So I pre-composed my rebuttal: "All I want you to do is two things: show up and shut up. Can you do that? Meet with me every six weeks or so, and just be there - an honest, prayerful presence with no responsibility to be anything other than what you have become in your obedient lifetime." And it worked. If that is what you mean by "spiritual director," okay. But I still prefer "friend". You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise. The peace of the Lord, Eugene

Joe stepped in front of them, blocking it from their view. "All of you listen to me." Three pairs of eyes locked on his face: hopeful, expectant, still dark with anger and fear. Protectiveness erupted , so strong Joe wanted to shout with it. He drew one breath, then another, but Jesus it didn't help. "You're mine now," he told them, and he knew his voice was hoarse, trembling with furious conviction. He hadn't meant to rush Luna, to spill his guts so soon. He'd meant to give himself time, to give her and the kids time. But he couldn't hold it in. "All of you. I protect what's mine. No one is going to hurt you, and no one is going to run us off. I'll find the son of a bitch, I swear it. And when I do, he'll pay." Luna's eyes, narrowed with rage only a moment ago, now softened with an expression far too close to concern. She gave a reluctant nod and spoke very softly. "All right, Joe." He had an awful suspicion she agreed more to soothe him than because she believed what he said. Willow swallowed, nodded, then gave him a trembling smile. "All right," she said, agreeing with Luna, and she, too, seemed to want to comfort him. Women. Austin launched himself forward, hugging himself around Joe's knees and hanging on tight. Joe almost fell over. He felt as though he'd been stomped on already, his muscles, his mind, his deepest emotions. Hell, he hadn't known he had deep emotions until the kids and Luna had dredged them from a dark, empty place. He wasn't all that steady on his feet, and Austin hit him with the impact of a small tank. But it was more the punch to his heart than the impetus against his legs that threw him off balance. Joe touched the tangled mop of blond hair. "Austin?" Austin squeezed him, then said against Joe's knees, "Okay." He finally tipped up his face to give Joe a crooked, admiring grin. "I sure like it when you're disrespectful." That ridiculous comment lightened Joe's mood, and he laughed. "Rodent.

That peace did not come easily. I spent two years enumerating my father's flaws, constantly updating the tally as if reciting every resentment, every real and imagined act of cruelty, of neglect, would justify my decision to cut him from my life. Once justified I thought the strangling guilt would release me, and I could catch my breath. But vindication has no power over guilt. No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them. Guilt is the fear of ones own retchedness. It has nothing to do with other people. I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on my own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old greviences, without weighing his sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake. Because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it. It was the only way I could love him. When my father was in my life, wrestling me for control of that life, I percieved him with the eyes of a soldier, through a fog of conflict. I could not make out his tender qualities. When he was before me towering, indignant, I could not remember how when I was young his laugh used to shake his gut and make his glasses shine. In his stern presence I could never recall the pleasant way his lips used to twitch, before they were burned away, when a memory tugged tears from his eyes. I can only remember those things now, with a span of miles and years between us. But what has come between me and my father is more than time or distance. It is a change in the self. I am not the child my father raised but he is the father who raised her.

God saw Hansen tighten his chokehold on Day and he could see his lover fighting to breathe. Day’s ears and neck were bright red. His lips were turning a darker color as his body was deprived of oxygen. Hansen pressed the barrel in deeper and yelled. “Two minutes and fifteen seconds before I get to zero and I provide the great state of Georgia the luxury of one less narc.” God’s mind exploded at the thought of not having Day in a world he lived in. He looked into his partner’s glistening eyes and saw he was turning blue and possibly getting ready to faint. Day was still looking at him, looking into God’s green eyes. No, no, no! He’s saying good-bye. God closed his eyes and released a loud, gut-wrenching growl cutting off the SWAT leader’s negotiations. “Godfrey, get yourself under control,” his captain said while grabbing for him. God jerked himself away from the hold and stepped forward, his angry eyes boring into Hansen’s dark ones. Hansen stared at him as if God was crazy. Little did he know God was at that moment. “Godfrey, get back here and stand down. That’s an order, Detective!” his captain barked. God’s large hands clenched at his sides fighting not to pull out his weapons. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. “Do you have any idea of the shit storm you’re about to bring down on your life,” God spoke with a menacing snarl while his large frame shook with fury. “In your arms you hold the only thing in this world that means anything to me. The man that you are pointing a gun at is my only purpose for living. You are threating to kill the only person in this world that gives a fuck about me.” God took two more steps forward and was vaguely aware of the complete silence surrounding him. Hansen’s finger hovered shakily over the trigger as he took two large steps back with Day still tight against his chest. God growled again and he saw a shade of fear ghost over Hansen’s sweaty face. “If you kill that man, I swear on everything that is holy, I will track you to the ends of the earth, killing and destroying any and everything you hold dear. I will take everything from you and leave you alive to suffer through it. I will bestow upon you the same misery that you have given to me.” Hansen shook his head and inched closer to the door behind him. “Stay back,” he yelled again but this time the demand lacked the courage and venom he exhibited before. “You kill that man, and you’ll have no idea of the monster you will create. Have you ever met a man with no heart…no conscience…no soul…no purpose?” God rumbled, his voice at least twelve octaves lower than the already deep baritone. God yanked his Desert Eagle from his holster in a flash and cocked the hammer back chambering the first round. Hansen stumbled back again, his eyes gone wide with fear. God’s entire body instinctually flexed every muscle in his body and it felt like the large vein in his neck might rupture. His body burned like he had a sweltering fever and he knew his wrath had him a brilliant shade of red. “I’m asking you a goddamn question, Hansen! No soul! No conscience! I’m asking you have you ever met the devil!” God’s thunderous voice practically rattled the glass in the hanger. “If you kill the man I love, you better make your peace with God, because I’m gonna meet your soul in hell.” His voice boomed.

So don't look over your shoulder or let fear and anxiety rule you. Go for broke. Let passion blaze your trail. Look ahead and pursue the dream that fits who you are as a person and a manager. Learn what you can, but don't get bogged down--in today's world, there's so much to know that learning can actually take the place of action and hold you back. Learn enough, then trust your gut and act. Be bold--or crazy--enough not to hold back. Take advantage of the freedom to be your own person. When the game is over, regardless of the score, you'll revel in what you've done.

Men were funny, aye, so they were, and the most amusing thing about them was how little they knew it. Men, with their swaggering, belt-hitching names for themselves. Men, so proud of their muscles, their drinking capacities, their eating capacities; so everlastingly proud of their pricks. Yes, even in these times, when a good many of them could shoot nothing but strange, bent seed that produced children fit only to be drowned in the nearest well. Ah, but it was never their fault, was it, dear? No, always it was the woman—her womb, her fault. Men were such cowards. Such grinning cowards. These three had been no different from the general run. The old one with the limp might bear watching—aye, so he might, a clear and overly curious pair of eyes had looked out at her from his head—but she saw nothing in them she could not deal with, came it to that. Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn’t the gods made them with the most vulnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted. Anyone who doubted that second bit of wisdom need only look at her night’s second bit of business, the one which still lay ahead.

I walked over to the guy behind the bar, the one I'd followed from Low Town. Up close he was bigger than I realized, solid shoulders and a crew cut and a gut pushing past his waistband. He stared down at me from across the counter, trying not to show fear. "You're pretty short," I said. He laughed awkwardly. "I said, you're pretty fucking short." This time he didn't laugh. "I heard you." "Shorter than me." "I guess." "Say it." "Say what?" "Tell me you're shorter than me." "Are you fucking serious?" "Yes." He shot a look over at Sully. I put my hand up to block the view, snapped my fingers. "Your boss can't make you no taller." "I'm shorter than you," he said, and he said it without a stutter.

Sometimes I don’t know how any of us go on. Sometimes I fear there’s no way our species will survive our own self-destructive choices. Sometimes I feel so gut punched by the backward deal of the universe—that if you’re really lucky, you get people in your life to love, and then, over time, they will all either leave you or die—that I am angry at life. Actually, not sometimes. Always. I always feel that way. I don’t always actively think about it, but it’s in there. At the same time, I am always looking for some gratitude, warmth, or hope. I often have to really search for it, but when I see something that makes me feel joy—even just a tiny odd hardly anything—you’re damn right I applaud it. Way to go, adorable cat on a leash! Thank you, server who brought my hot pizza! Kudos, writers of a TV show that made me laugh! Hallelujah, sunshine after a week of storms! Yay for a good hair day, yippee for hot coffee, huzzah for an outfit that puts bounce in my step. If I can scrape up some evidence of a thing made beautifully or a gesture made kindly, then I can believe, for a few seconds, that this world is careful and kind. And if I can believe that, I can believe it is safe to let the people I love walk around out there. It’s my own attempt at foresparkling, seeking out hints of good, even planting them myself, so I can believe there’s more good to come. It might all be superstition, just mental magic, but why not try?

It was not what the ballroom crowd wanted to hear at that moment. Not after listening to Muskie denounce Wallace as a cancer in the soul of America… but McGovern wasn’t talking to the people in that ballroom; he was making a very artful pitch to potential Wallace voters in the other primary states. Wisconsin was three weeks away, then Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan—and Wallace would be raising angry hell in every one of them. McGovern’s brain-trust, though, had come up with the idea that the Wallace vote was “soft”—that the typical Wallace voter, especially in the North and Midwest, was far less committed to Wallace himself than to his thundering, gut-level appeal to rise up and smash all the “pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington” who’d been fucking them over for so long.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, show no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dear like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, your open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear. Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

Knowing what he wanted, he went after it with single-minded intensity, until a hoarse moan ripped from her and she arched toward him, her body jerking with every pass of his tongue. His, at last. Hunter rose over her, his gaze riveted to her flushed face and dazed blue eyes. Skimming his breeches down his hips, he undressed quickly and took off his medicine pouch. Then, positioning himself over her, he seized her hips and drew her toward him. Carefully and with a slowness that was agonizing for him, he pressed himself into her. As he feared, the passage was tight, so tight that he nearly pulled back. His guts clenched, and a tremor crawled up his spine. There wasn’t any way he could spare her pain this first time. She was a slightly built woman, narrow of hip. He was not a small man. Sweat sprang to his brow. She was as ready as he could get her. If he didn’t take her now, he never would. Setting his jaw, Hunter eased farther into her, filled with self-loathing because, even now, though he knew how much he was about to hurt her, fire flared in his belly and his body ached for release. Her eyes widened at the pain, and the color washed from her lips. When he met with the resistance of her maidenhead, he hesitated, then drove forward in one smooth thrust, sheathing himself in liquid heat. She screamed--a shrill, broken cry that cut through him. The next instant she scrambled to escape. Hunter quickly blanketed her body with his and captured her flailing arms. “Toquet, it is well, little one. It is finished, eh?” She panted, tossing her head. “It h-hurts!” “It will pass,” he assured her huskily. “It will pass. It is a promise I make for you.” She went rigid when he began to move within her, her small face drawing tight. Tears sprang to Hunter’s eyes when she reached up to hug his neck, clinging to him even though he was the one hurting her. He had asked her to trust him this one last time. And she had.

I come for the woman,” the Comanche repeated, never taking his gaze from her. “And I bring my finest horses to console her father for his loss. Fifty, all trained to ride.” His black sidestepped and whinnied. The Indian swayed easily with his mount. “Send me the woman, and have no fear. She will come to no harm walking in my footsteps, for I am strong and swift. She will never feel hunger, for I am a fine hunter. My lodge will shelter her from the winter rain, and my buffalo robes will shield her from the cold. I have spoken it.” Aunt Rachel crossed herself. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray--” “We don’t sell our womenfolk,” Henry called back. “You sicken my gut, tosi tivo. After you had bedded her, you would have sold her to that dirty old man.” With a sneer twisting his lips, he lifted Tom Weaver’s wool riding blanket from his horse’s withers and tossed it to the dirt. “Better you sell her to me. I am young. I will give her many fine sons. She will not wail over my death for many winters.” “I’d rather shoot her, you murdering bastard,” Henry retorted. “Then do it and make your death song.” The Comanche wheeled his horse, riding close to the window where Loretta stood. “Where is the herbi with such great courage who came out to face us once before? Does she still sleep? Will you hide behind your wooden walls and let your loved ones die? Come out, Yellow Hair, and meet your destiny.

He quite certainly shouldn't care: and still he feels a hot sick bubbling in his gut, as if he'd drunk turned milk, or been on a drunken spree. Or been spurned in love, since damn fools seem to take that uncommonly serious, and stick knives in their guts over it all the time, in poems and plays. Romeo and Juliet, being one example, that he's read half a dozen times but never thought to see played out on the stage. Except that Ree took it into his head not a month ago, to take him to the theatre at Stratford to see it. The play's practically seditious when you think about it: Shakespeare's tale of forbidden love between a free-born human lad, and the high-born wolf-girl from the family that had owned then freed his father. At least old Will didn't go so far as to make the boy a slave, else he'd probably have found himself clapped in irons for thanks for his labour. Though of course as a wolf himself, for all his relatively low-status till he won fame from his quill, he'd less to fear than a human would have had. And even a wolf audience can sigh and dab their eyes over a tragic romance, between the two classes of men. As long as the powerless class gets no ideas of acting on that offensive gush of sentimentality.

Knowing what he wanted, he went after it with single-minded intensity, until a hoarse moan ripped from her and she arched toward him, her body jerking with every pass of his tongue. His, at last. Hunter rose over her, his gaze riveted to her flushed face and dazed blue eyes. Skimming his breeches down his hips, he undressed quickly and took off his medicine pouch. Then, positioning himself over her, he seized her hips and drew her toward him. Carefully and with a slowness that was agonizing for him, he pressed himself into her. As he feared, the passage was tight, so tight that he nearly pulled back. His guts clenched, and a tremor crawled up his spine. There wasn’t any way he could spare her pain this first time. She was a slightly built woman, narrow of hip. He was not a small man. Sweat sprang to his brow.

And what about you guys?” I drop my book on the couch and stand up. “You guys refused to take an omega after Emily. I’m not the only one living in fear, Cory.” He grinds his jaw and nods. “Yeah, we were living in fear. Until you.” That remark sucker punches me in the gut and steals my breath, taking all of my fight with it. I knew they’d softened over the last few weeks. I watched them warm to me and let me in. They conquered their fear, so why can’t I?

Caleb’s eyes twinkled with amusement and he caught my cheek in his large hand, kissing me again. There wasn’t as much heat in it but it still made me feel a little weak at the knees. Maybe making nice with one of the Heirs wasn’t the worst choice I’d ever made. “Caleb?” a harsh voice came from the doorway beside us and fear darted through me as I pulled away from Caleb in surprise. Darius stood in the hall, the vine which had secured the door burned to a crisp on the ground from his magic. He was scowling at the two of us and seemed even more intimidating than usual. His gaze took in the cards and poker chips all over the floor alongside the less than perfect state of my hair and I was endlessly grateful that he hadn’t turned up five minutes ago. Caleb didn’t release his hold on me but turned to look at the other Heir with a hint of irritation in his gaze. “I’m busy,” he said flatly, a clear demand for Darius to leave. “My father and the other Councillors want to speak to all of the Heirs before we leave. They sent me to look for you,” Darius said, ignoring his friend’s irritation. “Your sister and Lance are already waiting outside for you,” he added to me, his tone dismissive. Caleb sighed and turned back to look at me but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Darius. He looked my way, meeting my eyes and I almost flinched from the anger I found there. “I haven’t finished yet,” Caleb said, his eyes roaming over me but I was still trapped in Darius’s gaze. “Well stop playing with your food and get on with it,” Darius demanded. Caleb growled in response to the command but he leaned in to brush his mouth against my neck. I didn’t bother to try and fight him off but I released my hold on his shirt so I was no longer pulling him towards me. “We can pick this up later, sweetheart,” Caleb murmured. “But I need my strength if I’ve gotta face the Councillors.” His teeth slid into my neck, and his hand pushed into my hair as he held me in place. The strange sucking sensation pulled at my gut as he tapped into the well of power that lay within me, drawing it into himself. Darius’s gaze stayed fixed on us the entire time and I couldn’t help but look back at him. His eyes were like two burning pits of rage and I wondered briefly if Caleb was breaking some rule of theirs by being less than awful to me. Caleb withdrew his fangs from my skin and brushed his fingers over the wound, healing it for me. I looked up at him in surprise and he smiled ruefully. “See you downstairs, sweetheart,” he murmured, leaning forward like he was going to kiss me again. I ducked aside with a taunting grin. “Not if I see you first,” I warned playfully. He chuckled darkly. “I look forward to catching you again then.” Caleb moved to join Darius and the two of them turned and walked away down the corridor without another glance at me. “What the hell was that about?” Darius asked him in an undertone. “Lighten up, Darius. We were just playing a game. And you have to admit I got a damn hot prize for winning it.” Darius grunted in response and the two of them turned a corner, leaving me alone. (tory)

Oblation "Your prayers are your light; Your devotion is your strength; Sleep is the enemy of both. Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you. If you ignore it, if you waste it, You will only turn to dust." - Rabi'a The terror that brings me to these words, The horror and sickness I feel that words Are not enough, the sin I make in speaking, How can I rail against the pain without Pain itself balling in the gut and forcing itself through my throat? I’d fly in the wind And merge with its velocity, drive my car At the edge of the cliff and go over its rim, If I thought I’d come closer to the pain That they felt. The suffering of the child In the suburban home, the tear in the eye Of women and infants gathering food from ruins, Can I sharpen the edge of my knife On the rocks that smoke on the horizon, Rasp its teeth on the steel girders And console the sting of death? Let me bring these sparks of confusion to the altar, Set them on the pyre and merge into the light. Then, then, will I find what I am looking for? Find reality beyond time, the oneness that animates All life, pulls together these fragments and ties The knots in my muscles? I have nothing to offer On the altar but this flesh, this desire of desire, The lie and the fear that the flesh bears. Then, then, will I find what I am looking for? Find reality beyond time, the oneness that animates All life, pulls together these fragments and ties The knots in my muscles? I have nothing to offer On the altar but this flesh, this desire of desire, The lie and the fear that the flesh bears.

Hey,” a deep unfamiliar voice said from behind her. Every nerve went on alert. Her heart pounded with fear. Instinct told her to run, but how far could she go with him so close? She grabbed a knife from the butcher block beside her and spun around, hurting her sore feet but not really feeling the pain. “Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.” Somewhere in her muddled mind he looked familiar, but the fear stole her rational thoughts. Her hands shook and she backed up into the counter, looking everywhere for an escape that seemed impossible. “Hey now, you’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Tears filled her eyes. Too much to take in one night, she stammered, “Get out. Leave me alone.” The stranger took a step toward her, and she took one toward him. “Get out, or I’ll gut you where you stand.” One side of his mouth cocked up in a slanted grin. His eyes flashed with admiration, confusing her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m looking for Owen.” “He doesn’t live here. Why does everyone think he lives here?” she yelled. A flash of movement came from her left; she swung to face the new danger and inhaled when Owen rushed her, pushing the knife out of his way and pulling her close. She immediately dropped it and grabbed hold of him as he kept his back to the stranger, her back to the counter, and his big body protecting her. “You’re okay, sweetheart. That’s my brother, Brody. He came to help me board up the glass door.” He hugged her closer when she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and held him tighter, crying all over the front of his shirt, her face buried in his chest, her bravado from a moment ago drained away, overwhelmed by her fear. Owen was here, holding her, keeping her safe. She needed him and refused to let go, even when he tried to back away. “Brody, man, you want to give us a minute.” “Sure. I just wanted to let her know I’m here. She’s got a lot of guts, facing off with me with that knife. I like her.” “Yeah, I like her, too.” Owen brushed his hand over her head and settled into her, holding her tight and close. Brody left with a chuckle and an “I bet you do.” All of a sudden she felt foolish, but it didn’t stop her from staying in Owen’s arms. She shifted on her feet, and he slid his big hands down her back to her waist, hoisting her up onto the counter. His warm hands settled on her thighs, spreading them wide so he could stand between them. Close. Intimate. Their eyes met, and he reached up and swiped his thumbs across both her cheeks, taking away the tears. She got hold of herself enough to say, “Your brother is huge.” “You just faced off with an ex– Army Ranger. He could take you out with one lethal smile.” “He wasn’t smiling.” “He doesn’t much, since he got home. Unless he’s with Rain." -Brody, Claire, & Owen

Fear and perfectionism take over. Judgement fills our guts. Then the ultimate disappointment―in yourself, your project, your abilities.Do you really want to be the person who couldn't follow through? Who couldn't stick it out for another six months or, god forbid, another year? 

You know that scene in every shoot-em-up movie where the hero is shot in the gut and bleeding all over the floors?  He makes it through the last 20 minutes of the movie like that – shooting up bad guys with one hand and holding his gut with the other.  Life is a lot like that.  We’ve all got our own problems - health problems, money problems, love problems, fears, insecurities, a brutal past that tries to haunt us.  But we can’t be paralyzed by that stuff.  We’ve got to save the day even if we bleed on the floors.

That society is becoming a pain in the neck. I need to get word to Mikhail that we did not stamp them out as we thought we had. They seem to be back and stronger than ever. Every thirty years or so they crop up to give us problems.” “Julian must have only discovered them quite recently or he would have told you about them when he was reporting in to you about me.” There was a bite to her voice. She was still annoyed that Gregori had had someone watching her. Even more than that, she was annoyed with herself for not sensing another of her kind. “Julian never exactly reported in to me,” Gregori said dryly. “He is not the kind of man to answer to anyone. Julian is like the wind, the wolves. Totally free. He goes his own way. He watched over you, but he did not send me reports. That is not his way.” “He sounds interesting,” Savannah murmured. Instantly Gregori could feel his muscles tighten. That black, nameless rage that made him so dangerous boiled in his gut. He would always live with the fear that he had stolen Savannah from another. That some other Carpathian male held the secret to her heart. That he had condemned another to death or, worse, to becoming the undead, because he had stolen Savannah. Since Gregori had manipulated the outcome of their joining, perhaps there was some other whose chemistry matched hers perfectly. His silver eyes were cold and lethal, small red flames leaping in their depths. “You do not need to find Savage interesting. I would never give you up, Savannah.” “Don’t be an idiot, Gregori,” she said impatiently. “As if I’d even want some other beast just out of the cave when I’ve almost got you trained.

He glanced over and ogled the side profile of her as she stared straight ahead either watching Chase being strapped in to the harness, or pretending to. “I gave my mother money for drugs.” Power said nothing. He almost wondered if the words had really come from her; they were spoken so unsystematic. “Do you believe in doing the wrong things for the right reasons?” That punched him in the gut. Was it that simple? Did this girl really have the answers? Had she just summed up his entire life in that last self-effacing question like that? “Yes…” He found himself replying staring straight ahead now as well. When his eyes traveled back over to her, he caught a swift hand movement across her cheek. If there had been a tear there it was gone now. The type of woman Gaby was, he wouldn’t question whether she’d been crying or not; he feared he’d cause her more embarrassment than comfort.

The men fortunately didn’t notice my near heart attack or me.  They were too busy watching something in the parking lot.  Standing shoulder to shoulder, they blocked my view.  I didn’t really care what had them so engrossed; I wanted to go home. I heard Sam behind me, muttered a quick “excuse me,” and moved around the small group.  It took me less than a second to spot the object of their attention.  Once I did, I couldn’t look away. Sam’s truck had exploded.  Ok, maybe not literally, but that’s what it looked like at first glance.  The detached hood leaned against the right front fender.  Dark shapes littered the ground directly in front of the truck.  My mouth popped open when I realized I was looking at scattered pieces of the truck’s guts.  Little pieces, big pieces, some covered in sludge.  Deep inside, I groaned a desperate denial.  Not Sam’s truck.  I needed it. A clanking sound drew my attention from the carnage to the form bent over the front grill.  He did this, the last man I’d met.  He studied the gaping hole that had once lovingly cradled an engine—one with enough life to drive me home. “Gabby, honey,” Sam said from behind me, causing me to jump.  “I don’t think he wants you to go just yet.” My heart sank.  Not only did the man’s actions scream loud and clear “she’s mine” but Sam’s calm statement confirmed my worst fear.  The Elders had noticed.  My stomach clenched with dread for a moment, and I wrestled with my emotions.  No, it didn’t matter who noticed.  I wasn’t giving up or giving in.  I’d told Sam I’d come to the Introductions.  I had never agreed to follow their customs. “There’s more than one vehicle here,” I said. “If we go inside to ask anyone else, we’ll come back to more vehicular murder.” I turned to look at Sam.  He watched the man and his truck.  He was right.  I couldn’t ask anyone else to deal with this guy’s obvious mental disorder.  As soon as that thought entered my mind, I felt a little guilty.  I usually didn’t judge people.  I preferred to avoid them altogether.  But this guy made himself hard to ignore. “Fine.”  I shouldered my bag, turned, and walked toward the main gate, pretending I didn’t hear Sam’s warning. “You won’t get far,” he said softly behind me. The

Sylvan heard her stumbling along behind him as they made their way down the side of the mountain and every instinct he possessed shouted that he needed to go back and help her. Needed to hold her in his arms and carry her to safety. But he forced himself to go on. She doesn’t want me, doesn’t want my help or my touch. It was true and he knew it. The rejection he could handle. But the fear in her eyes… Sylvan clenched his jaw. Goddess, that she could ever think I would hurt her. The very idea was like a fist in his gut. He would rather be hurt himself, would rather be wounded a thousand times over than allow her to get a single scratch. Should have left her alone. Shouldn’t have healed her. That was what scared her the most, waking up and seeing me bending over her with my fangs out. But he had been so worried. And besides, it was impossible for him to see her hurt and not want to heal her. He had told her once, the second time they met, that as a doctor he had no emotional attachment to his patients. But it was different with her—so very different. And those few moments before she’d woken up completely, before she’d started fearing him, had been beyond compare. He

It was very hard for him to admit it to himself, but having her around had brought him a strange comfort, and he had no idea why. Looking out for her made him feel better somehow. Making sure she was fed and protected against danger—that seemed to work for him, too. It was a lot of trouble, actually. If she hadn’t been around, he wouldn’t go to as much bother with meals. Three out of four nights he’d just open a can of something, but because she’d been sick and needed a hot meal he’d put his best foot forward. Plus, she needed to put on another few pounds. He had spent a lot of time wondering if searching for him, sleeping in her car and probably skipping meals had made her thin and weak. Knowing she was going to be there when he got home, pestering and bothering him, made him hurry a little bit through his work, his chores. He couldn’t figure out why—he was damn sure not going to go over all that old business about the war, about Bobby. Just thinking about that stuff put a boulder in his gut and made his head ache. And yet, he had a ridiculous fear that this phone call to her sister would result in her saying, “I have to go home now.” But there was no use worrying about it—she’s going to leave soon no matter what the sister says. It’s not as though she’d camp out in his cabin through the holidays—she had people at home. Never mind her grousing about her sister, at least she had a sister who loved her, cared about her. And what had she said when she asked for a ride to town? Just a little while longer… It was the first relationship he’d had in about four years. Old Raleigh didn’t count—that had been pure servitude. If the man hadn’t left him part of a mountain, Ian would never have suspected Raleigh was even slightly grateful for the caretaking in the last months. Ian saw people regularly—he worked for the moving company when the weather was good, had his firewood route, went places like the library, had a meal out now and then. People were nice to him, and he was cordial in return. But he never got close; there had been no relationships. No one poked at him like she did, making him smile in spite of himself. That business with the puma—her opening the outhouse door and yelling at him like that—he knew what that was about. She was afraid he’d get hurt by the cat and risked her own skin to warn him. Been a long damn time since he felt anyone really cared about him at all. Maybe that was it, he thought. Marcie thinks she cares, and it’s because I was important to Bobby. If we’d just met somehow, it wouldn’t be like this. But that didn’t matter to him right now. He liked the feeling, alien though it was. He’d be back for her in two and a half hours and while he was delivering a half a cord to some dentist in Fortuna he’d watch the time so he wouldn’t be late getting back to pick her up. And with every split log he stacked, he’d be hoping her family wouldn’t find a way to get her home right away. *

In a sudden and desperate move, she grabbed at the handle on the door and furiously tried to open it. She looked around for a lock, pushing on the door at the same time, but it wouldn’t give. She popped the little button on the door next to the window—up and down, up and down, moving the handle, pushing. Nothing. Her upper arm was gripped hard and she turned her watering, terrified eyes toward Wes. He scowled blackly, then his frown dissolved into mean grin. “Jammed, Paige. How stupid do you think I am?” She swallowed hard and asked, “Do you plan to leave our son without a mother?” “Absolutely,” he said with terrifying calm. “But not until I’m sure I’m leaving him without a potential stepfather.” “God,” she whispered weakly. “Why, Wes? John hasn’t done anything to you!” “No?” he asked. “Only took my family away from me. Got my family to turn against me.” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, that’s not what happened, Wes. I ran from you.” “Sure you did, Paige. And if it wasn’t for that guy, you’d still be running. Running and running, and I would find you and find you. But what you did—ending it forever and sending me to fucking prison, that was his doing. We both know you don’t have the guts for that.” He turned his head toward her and grinned meanly. “He’ll come after you, you know he will.” I’m bait, she thought. Nothing but bait. “I wouldn’t mind a piece of that other one, either,” he said. “Sheridan.” Something came over Paige. It seemed to rise within her from her core. You don’t have the guts for that.... The thought that this dangerous lunatic would ruthlessly, without conscience, hurt John and his own son sizzled inside her like boiling oil. Her fear slowly gave way to rage. “You’re going to burn in hell,” she whispered. But he couldn’t hear her above the noise of the old pickup. *

The short guy’s fuse blew faster than anticipated. He took a swing at Myron’s gut. Myron was still ready. One of the lessons Myron had learned over the years was how to take a punch. It was crucial if you were going to get into any physical confrontation. In a real fight, you almost always get hit, no matter how good you are. How you reacted psychologically often decided the outcome. If you don’t know what to expect, you shrivel up and cower. You get too defensive. You let the fear conquer you. If the blow is a headshot, you need to play the angles. Don’t let the punch land square, especially on the nose. Even slight head tilts can help. Instead of four knuckles landing, maybe it will only be two or one. That makes a huge difference. You also have to relax your body, let it go. You should turn away from the strike, literally roll with the punch. When a blow is aimed at your abdomen, especially when your hands are cuffed behind your back, you need to clench the stomach muscles, shift, and bend at the waist so it doesn’t wallop the breadbasket. That was what Myron did. The blow didn’t hurt much. But Myron, noting the taller guy’s nervousness, put on a performance that would have made De Niro take notes. “Aarrrggggghhh!

The short guy’s fuse blew faster than anticipated. He took a swing at Myron’s gut. Myron was still ready. One of the lessons Myron had learned over the years was how to take a punch. It was crucial if you were going to get into any physical confrontation. In a real fight, you almost always get hit, no matter how good you are. How you reacted psychologically often decided the outcome. If you don’t know what to expect, you shrivel up and cower. You get too defensive. You let the fear conquer you. If

Swinging to his feet, Hunter scattered the fire so the flames licked feebly at the wood and threw the lodge into gentle shadows. Then he turned to regard his wife, forcing his hands to curl loosely at his sides, his stance deliberately relaxed. “Blue Eyes, come here,” he whispered softly. She threw up her head like a startled doe, her eyes huge and wary. Hunter’s guts clenched, and with one stride he closed the distance between them. Catching her by the chin, he tipped her head back and feathered his thumb across her quivering bottom lip. “I--” Her voice shook and broke. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I know I promised. It’s just that--I’m a little nervous.” Hunter bent his head and lightly pressed his forehead against hers, nudging her hands aside so he could untie the pink ribbon that cinched her small waist. With deft fingers he loosened the petticoat and let it fall in a heap at their feet. “There is nothing to fear,” he whispered, “nothing.” Her breath caught when he untied the first small bow that held her chemise closed. He untied the others quickly and feathered his fingers over her shoulders, skimming the muslin aside and drawing it down her arms. Shame washed over her, hot and pulsating, as the evening air touched her bare breasts. She closed her eyes, wishing she could die on the spot. An instant later she opened her eyes again, terrified of what he might do when she wasn’t watching. Loosening the drawstring waist of her pantalets, he crouched before her, tugging the breeches down her legs, pulling off her high-topped shoes as he divested her of the garment. As he stood back up, it was his turn to catch his breath. His memories didn’t do her justice. For a moment he couldn’t drag his gaze from her, so fascinated was he by the glowing whiteness of her skin, the delicate curves, so long hidden from him by chin-high calico and multiple layers of muslin. Settling his hands on her narrow waist, he drew her toward him, his heart slamming as the pebbled tips of her small breasts came into contact with the flesh over his ribs. In the dim light he could see tears shimmering on her pale cheeks. He bent his head to catch their saltiness with the tip of his tongue. “Ah, Blue Eyes, ka taikay, ka taikay, don’t cry. Has my hand upon you ever brought pain?” “No,” she whispered brokenly.

Ryan looked over Jamie’s shoulder at the city lights flaring against the clouds. He had thought all week about Jamie’s situation, but no matter how desperately he had racked his brain for a solution, he’d come to the same unsatisfying, frustrating conclusion every time: there was no solution. He was the reason Jamie was miserable, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Jamie would continue to be miserable—until he finally got tired and left. The truth of it sliced through him, and Ryan’s arms tightened around Jamie. Something churned in his gut, a primal fear the likes of which he’d never felt before. He tried to suppress the insane urge to grab Jamie and lock him up somewhere safe. Somewhere only he had access to. Yeah. Right. That wasn’t creepy at all. “Yeah, I’m freaking out, mate,” he admitted quietly, burying his face in Jamie’s hair. “Just not about what you think.” He mouthed Jamie’s nape, trailed his lips to the soft skin of Jamie’s cheek. Jamie shuddered and melted against him, turning his face into the touch. Ryan went still. Damn, Jamie’s reaction to such an innocent touch was incredible. Despite knowing that Jamie wanted him that way—hell, despite having had Jamie come all over his hand a week ago—it still took him aback how needy and putty-like Jamie was in his hands. It was weird but flattering, it felt wrong and yet pushed those strange, twisted buttons he hadn’t even known he had. He kissed the corner of Jamie’s mouth. A small whine left Jamie’s trembling lips. Bloody hell. He turned Jamie around and looked at him. Jesus fucking Christ. Jamie looked…He looked as if he’d just been snogged thoroughly: his pupils blown, pale cheeks flushed, and lips parted. The longing, hungry look he gave Ryan was downright shameless and obscene—the kind of look that belonged on a whore’s face before she spread her legs. Ryan stared. Jamie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I—” Jamie said before opening his eyes and glaring at Ryan. “Why did you do it?” That was a good question. Behind them, the door opened. “Supper is ready, boys,” Sandra said.

The goal is to face your fears. That is how you overcome fear. Then it can’t have a stronghold over you, your beliefs, and your mind.

Increasingly, I have become concerned that the motivation to meet Wall Street earnings expectations may be overriding common sense business practices,” he said. “Too many corporate managers, auditors, and analysts are participants in a game of nods and winks. In the zeal to satisfy consensus earnings estimates and project a smooth earnings path, wishful thinking may be winning the day over faithful representation. As a result, I fear that we are witnessing an erosion in the quality of earnings, and therefore, the quality of financial reporting. Managing may be giving way to manipulation. Integrity may be losing out to illusion.” It was a remarkable speech.

A need, yes, there is a need because time and time again, I prove that I am frightened of it. Yes, a gut-twisting, tormenting fear of all people and what they think of me, always; always, this is over my shoulder.

The Son of a vacuum Among the tall trees he sat lost, broken, alone again, among a number of illegal immigrants, he raised his head to him without fear, as nothing in this world is worth attention. -He said: I am not a hero; I am nothing but a child looking for Eid. The Turkmen of Iraq, are the descendants of Turkish immigrants to Mesopotamia through successive eras of history. Before and after the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, countries crossed from here, and empires that were born and disappeared, and still, preserve their Turkish identity. Although, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Arab world, they now live in one of its countries. Kirkuk, one of the heavens of God on earth, is one of the northern governorates of Iraq in which they live. The Kurdish race is shared with them, a race out of many in Iraq. Two children of two different ethnicities, playing in a village square in Kirkuk province when the news came from Baghdad, of a new military coup. Without delay, Saddam Hussein took over the reins of power, and faster than that, Iraq was plunged into successive wars that began in 1980 with its neighbor Iran, a war that lasted eight years. Iraq barely rested for two years, and in the third, a new war in Kuwait, which did not end in the best condition as the leader had hoped, as he was expelled from it after the establishment of an international coalition to liberate it, led by the United States of America. Iraq entered a new phase of suffering, a siege that lasted more than ten years, and ended up with the removal of Saddam Hussein from his power followed by the US occupation of it in 2003. As the father goes, he returns from this road, there is no way back but from it. As the date approaches, the son stands on the back of that hill waiting for him to return. From far away he waved a longing, with a bag of dreams in his hands, a bag of candy in his pocket, and a poem of longing by a Turkmen poet who absorb Arabic, whose words danced on his lips, in his heart. -When will you come back, dad? -On the Eid, wait for me on the hill, you will see me coming from the road, waving, carrying your gifts. The father bid his son farewell to the Arab Shiite city of Basra, on the border with Iran, after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, as the homeland is calling its men, or perhaps the leader is calling his subjects. In Iraq, as in many countries of the Arab world, the homeland is the leader, and the leader is the homeland. Months passed, the child eagerly anticipating the coming of the feast, but the father hurried to return without an appointment, loaded on the shoulders, the passion reached its extent in the martyr’s chest, with a sheet of paper in his pocket on which he wrote: Every morning takes me nostalgic for you, to the jasmine flower, oh, melody in the heart, oh balm I sip every while, To you, I extend a hand and a fire that ignites in the soul a buried love, night shakes me with tears in my eyes, my longing for you has shaped me into dreams, stretching footsteps to the left and to the right, gleam, calling out for me, you scream, waking me up to the glimpse of the light of life in your face, a thousand sparkles, in your eyes, a meaning of survival, a smile, and a glace, Eid comes to you as a companion, without, life yet has no trace, for roses, necklaces of love, so that you amaze. -Where is Ruslan? On the morning of the feast day, at the door of his house, the kids asked his mother, -with tears in her eyes: He went to meet his father. A moment of silence fell over the children, -Raman, with a little gut: Aunt, do you mean he went to the cemetery? -Mother: He went to meet him at those hills.

Cover the war, what a gig to frame for yourself, going out after one kind of information and getting another, totally other, to lock your eyes open, drop your blood temperature down under the 0, dry your mouth out so a full swig of water disappeared in there before you could swallow, turn your breath fouler than corpse gas. There were times when your fear would take directions so wild that you had to stop and watch the spin. Forget the Cong, the trees would kill you, the elephant grass grew up homicidal, the ground you were walking over possessed malignant intelligence, your whole environment was a bath. Even so, considering where you were and what was happening to so many people, it was a privilege just to be able to feel afraid. So you learned about fear, it was hard to know what you really learned about courage. How many times did somebody have to run in front of a machine gun before it became an act of cowardice? What about those acts that didn’t require courage to perform, but made you a coward if you didn’t? It was hard to know at the moment, easy to make a mistake when it came, like the mistake of thinking that all you needed to perform a witness act were your eyes. A lot of what people called courage was only undifferentiated energy cut loose by the intensity of the moment, mind loss that sent the actor on an incredible run; if he survived it he had the chance later to decide whether he’d really been brave or just overcome with life, even ecstasy. A lot of people found the guts to just call it all off and refuse to ever go out anymore, they turned and submitted to the penalty end of the system or they just split. A lot of reporters, too, I had friends in the press corps who went out once or twice and then never again. Sometimes I thought that they were the sanest, most serious people of all, although to be honest I never said so until my time there was almost over. “We had this gook and we was gonna skin him” (a grunt told me), “I mean he was already dead and everything, and the lieutenant comes over and says, ‘Hey asshole, there’s a reporter in the TOC, you want him to come out and see that? I mean, use your fucking heads, there’s a time and place for everything.…” “Too bad you wasn’t with us last week” (another grunt told me, coming off a no-contact operation), “we killed so many gooks it wasn’t even funny.” Was it possible that they were there and not haunted? No, not possible, not a chance, I know I wasn’t the only one. Where are they now? (Where am I now?) I stood as close to them as I could without actually being one of them, and then I stood as far back as I could without leaving the planet. Disgust doesn’t begin to describe what they made me feel, they threw people out of helicopters, tied people up and put the dogs on them. Brutality was just a word in my mouth before that. But disgust was only one color in the whole mandala, gentleness and pity were other colors, there wasn’t a color left out. I think that those people who used to say that they only wept for the Vietnamese never really wept for anyone at all if they couldn’t squeeze out at least one for these men and boys when they died or had their lives cracked open for them. But of course we were intimate, I’ll tell you how intimate: they were my guns, and I let them do it.

Ash, you were my girl for years. But before that, we were friends. The best of friends. I should have never let one snag in the road cause me to turn on you like I did. It was wrong. You took all the blame for something that wasn’t entirely your fault. It was Beau’s and it was mine.” “Yours? How?” “I knew Beau loved you. I’d seen the way he looked at you. I also knew you loved him more than you loved me. You two had a secret bond I didn’t get to be a part of. I was jealous. Beau was my cousin and you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. I wanted you for myself. So I asked you out, never once going to Beau first. Never once asking him how he felt about it. You accepted, and just like magic I broke up the bond you two shared. You guys never talked anymore. There were no more late-night roof talks and no more bailing y’all out of trouble. Beau was my cousin and you were my girlfriend. It was as if your friendship had never been. I was selfish and ignored the guilt until it went away. Only the times I saw him watching you with that pained, needy expression did the guilt stir in my gut. It was mixed with fear. Fear you’d see that I’d done and go to him. Fear I’d lose you.” I reached down and ran my hand over his hair. “I loved you, too. I wanted to be good enough for you. I wanted to be the good girl you deserved.” “Ash, you were perfect just the way you were. I was the one who let you change. I liked the change. It’s one of the many reasons I feared I’d lose you. Deep down I knew one day that free spirit you’d quenched would fight to be released. It happened. And the fact it happened with Beau doesn’t surprise me in the least.” “I’m sorry, Sawyer. I never meant to hurt you. I made a mess of things. You aren’t going to have to watch Beau and me together. I’m stepping out of both of your lives. You can get back what was lost.” Sawyer reached up and grabbed my hand. “Don’t do that, Ash. He needs you.” “No, it’s what he wants too. Today he hardly acknowledged me. He only spoke to me when he was making a point to everyone else that I was to be left alone.” Sawyer let out a sad laugh. “He won’t last long. He’s never been able to ignore you. Not even when he knew I was watching him. Right now he’s dealing with a lot. And he’s dealing with it alone. Don’t push him away.” I jumped down from the branch and hugged Sawyer. “Thank you. Your acceptance means the world to me. But right now he needs you. You’re his brother. I’ll just be hindrance to you two dealing with everything.” Sawyer reached out and twirled a strand of my hair around his finger. “Even if I was wrong to take you without a thought to Beau’s feelings, I can’t make myself regret it. I’ve had three amazing years with you, Ash.” I didn’t know what to say. I’d had good times too, but I did regret choosing the wrong Vincent boy. He gave me one last sad smile, then dropped my hair and walked away.

Game of Thrones - Feast for Crows. “Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less," Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.

Although I was committed to going back, waves of fear crashed over me, causing doubt. I wondered if this was the fear I needed to push through or the fear I needed to listen to, the kind of fear that was telling me to stay away for good reason. I wondered if it was my gut, that inner voice I had learned to listen to, telling me to steer clear to keep myself out of danger. Or was it something else? Was it fear of past trauma causing a reactionary resistance to revisiting a place that nearly killed me? It was hard to tell the difference, honestly. The feelings felt so similar.

There is no darkness when I go to sleep; the wicked, as they say, never truly rest. I see blinding flashes of desperate arms reaching out, I hear cries for help over the crackling of burning wood, the ashen remains and the gut-wrenching smell of charred bodies.

The brain is not the source of anything. It is the conduit, the biological computer system, which responds to information stimuli and makes it conscious in terms of fivesense perception and behaviour. Different areas of the brain become activated, or ‘light up’, when energetic information is received that relates to their specific role in decoding and communicating information to the holographic conscious mind. The information can come from the heart and the greater Consciousness (what some call the soul), or it can come from direct Archontic possession and the endless Archontic programs such as education, science, medicine, media, politics etc., etc., etc. Once you open yourself to heart intelligence – innate intelligence, universal intelligence – the ‘opposition’ is routed and the heart and brain speak as one . The fact it is such a ‘revelation’ that the brain is changeable and malleable shows how far off the pace mainstream ‘science’ is and has been. The brain is a hologram and its base state is a 100 percent malleable waveform information field. When the field changes, the ‘physical’ brain must change and it is at the waveform and electromagnetic levels that Archontic possession takes place and the heart most powerfully interacts with the brain, although it does so electrically, too. For the most extreme possession to happen the heart’s influence must be seriously curtailed and that is why the Archons target the heart vortex in the way they have structured society and lock people into the emotional chakra in the gut. Positive feelings and perceptions like love and joy (high frequency) come from the heart while negative emotions like fear, anxiety, stress and depression (low frequency) come from the belly. The idea is to block the influence of the heart by giving people so many reasons to feel fear, anxiety, stress and depression. Stress causes heart disease because it stems the flow of energy through the heart chakra and causes it to form a chaotic field that becomes more intense the longer the stress continues. This distortion is transferred through to the holographic heart and there you have the reason why in a fearful and stressed society that heart disease is a mass global killer. What is called ‘heartache’ is when people feel the effect of the distorted heart-field. The effect of severe trauma, like losing a loved one, really can cause people to die of a ‘broken heart’ because of this. Research by the Institute of HeartMath has shown that the heart’s electromagnetic fields change in response to emotions and, given that the heart field can be measured several feet from the body, you can appreciate the fundamental effect – positive or negative – the nature of that field can have on mental, emotional and bodily health. The heart vortex and its massive electromagnetic field is where human perception has been most effectively hijacked and we need to reverse that. Nothing is more important than this for those who truly want to free themselves from Archontic tyranny. If people think they can meet this challenge with anger, hatred or violent revolution they should feel free to waste their time. No shift from gut to heart = global tyranny. Shift from gut to heart = game over. It is possible to override and bypass the brain altogether and in fact this must be done to go beyond ‘time and space’. I have been doing this since my experience in Peru and it gets more powerful and profound the more you do it. This is what Da Vinci, Bruno and the others were doing. Normally information enters what we call the conscious mind through the brain with all the potential interference, blocks and filters caused by belief, emotion and other programming. But if you move your point of attention from the body out into the infinity beyond the Matrix you can make a direct connection between expanded insight and your own conscious awareness.

I truly feared I had to choose between you,” the Fool said quietly. When I said nothing, he added, “Her dream of the buck, the bee, and the scale.” “And yet I am here, and alive, and our enemies are walled away from us by smoldering rubble. Perhaps I am still the Catalyst, and can change even her predictions of what must be. I am not dead yet and I don’t intend to die. I am taking Bee home, to Buckkeep. She will be raised as a princess, and you will be at het side to teach and advise her. Her sister will adore her and she will have a little niece to play with.” Two of the freed Whites rose and went over to the rack of torture tools. They made choices and then joined Lant, Spark, and Per, chipping away at the mortar. The irony twisted in my gut. “And we will live happily ever after?” the Fool asked. I watched the bits of mortar fall. “That is my intention.” “And mine. My hope. But a thin one.” “Don’t doubt us, or we are lost.” “Fitz, my love, that is the problem. I do not doubt Bee’s dreams at all.