Help Desk Quotes

I sat with my feet up on my desk and started to make a mental list of the people who’d want me dead. Once I got to fifty, I decided this wasn’t helping.

Help me,” said Jesper. “We need to barricade the entrance.” The man behind the desk wore gray scholar’s robes. His nostrils were flared so wide in effrontery that Jesper feared being sucked up one of them. “Young man—” Jesper pointed his gun at the scholar’s chest. “Move.” “Jesper!” his father said. “Don’t worry, Da. People point guns at each other all the time in Ketterdam. It’s basically a handshake.” “Is that true?” his father asked as the scholar grudgingly moved aside and they shoved the heavy desk in front of the door. “Absolutely,” said Wylan. “Certainly not,” said the scholar. Jesper waved them on. “Depends on the neighborhood. Let’s go.

Stop. Vibrating." Ryodan plucks a paper out of the air and slaps it back down on his desk. I wonder if he cleans it. How many tushes have been on that thing? I'm never touching it again. "Can't help it," I say around a mouthful of candy bar. I know what I look like: a smudge of black leather and hair. "It happens when I get really excited. The more excited I get, the more I vibrate." "Now there's a thought," Lor says. "If you mean what I think you mean, you want to shut the fuck up and never think it again," Ryodan says. "Just saying, boss," Lor says. "You can't tell me you didn't think it, too.

When she saw my messy desk, she said she was the same way, and there was no dust on the TV, and I was easy to love. People just need a little help because they are so used to not loving. It's like scoring the clay to make another piece of clay stick to it.

If I'm going to give you forever," she said, raising her chin higher, "I want something in return." "I already offered to help you out of your mess. What else do you want?" Eleanor considered her demands. He sounded open to suggestion, which was good because she had a suggestion. "Everything." "Everything?" he repeated. "As in. . .?" "Every. Thing." She stared at him across the desk, and this time it was her turn not to blink. "I give you forever, the least you can give me is everything.

Sherlock: You're keeping a SCRAPBOOK. Only old ladies and pre-pubescent girls keep scrapbooks, John. John: It's not a scrapbook, Sherlock. I'm collecting papers relevant to the cases. It helps me remember the details. And it was locked away in my desk drawer. Sherlock: The lock on your desk drawer was insulting me with its pretense at security.

I can’t help but notice,” Alina said. “The too-clever fox gave up his throne, but still managed to stay a king.” “A prince,” Genya corrected. “Prince consort. Or is he your general?” Zoya didn’t really care what title he took. He was hers, and that was all that mattered. Her eye caught on the blueprints she’d found waiting for her on her desk that morning, designs for an extraordinary structure Nikolai had designed to protect her garden. The plans had been bound with her blue velvet ribbon and accompanied by a note that read, I will always seek to make it summer for you. Zoya had been courted by men of wealth and power, offered jewels, palaces, the deed to a diamond mine. This was a different kind of treasure, one she could not believe she’d been lucky enough to find.

The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell. I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her. Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.

My head is throbbing. I need coffee. Leaving the marbled papers in a state of controlled chaos, I walk through the office and past the page's desk in the Reading Room. I am halted by Isabelle's voice saying, "Perhaps Mr. DeTamble can help you," by which she means "Henry, you weasel, where are you slinking off to?" and this astoundingly beautiful amber-haired tall slim girl turns around and looks at me as through I am her personal Jesus. My stomach lurches. Obviously she knows me, and I don't know her. Lord only knows what I've said, done, or promised to this luminous creature, so I am forced to say in my best librarianese, "Is there something I can help you with?" The girl sort of breathes "Henry!" in this very evocative way that convinces me that at some point in time we have a really amazing thing together. This makes it worse that I don't know anything about her, not even her name. I say "Have we met?" and Isabelle givs me a look that says You asshole. But the girl says, "I'm Claire Abshire. I knew you when I was a little girl," and invites me out to dinner. I accept, stunned.

So what do you do when you are stuck? The first thing I do when I am stuck is pray. But I’m not talking about a quick, Help me Lord, Sunday’s a comin’ prayer. When I get stuck I get up from my desk to head for my closet. Literally. If I‘m at the office I go over to a corner that I have deemed my closet away from home. I get on my knees and remind God that this was not my idea, it was His… None of this is new information to God… Then I ask God to show me if there is something He wants to say to prepare me for what He wants me to communicate to our congregation. I surrender my ideas, my outline and my topic. Then I just stay in that quiet place until God quiets my heart… Many times I will have a breakthrough thought or idea that brings clarity to my message. . . Like you, I am simply a mouthpiece. Getting stuck is one way God keeps me ever conscious of that fact.

And then I go over to the Delta Help Desk, which is an oxymoron, and I go, "Can I please go home on an airplane?" and they go "No! In fact, we"re gonna frame you for murder, and you're gonna go to jail for thirty years!" And I go, "Why are you doing this to me?!" And they go, "Because we're Delta Airlines, and life is a fucking nightmare!

I have this friend, Jake," Mr. Mitchell says, sitting on the edge of his desk. "One day, I needed a favor. It wasn't a big favor, but I called him and told him I needed something. Know what he said?" We shake our heads. "He said, 'Sure.' Before he eve knew what i was going to ask him. You know why?" We shake our heads again. "Because he trusted me not to ask him to do something he couldn't or wouldn't want to do. He knew that whatever i asked for, he would help me simply because he was my friend and I needed help. That's true friendship.

It wasn't just that Lucy wanted to help him. She wasn't as selfless as that. She was madly attracted to him. She was attracted to all of the normal things and the weird things, too, like the back of his neck and his thumbs on the edge of his desk and the way his hair stuck out on one side like a little wing over his ear. She caught his smell once, and it made her dizzy. She couldn't fall asleep that night.

I leaned into Barabas’s office. “Do you want to come help pick out a suit for Christopher?” “No,” Barabas said firmly, tapping a stack of papers against his desk to even it out. “Why?” “Because I don’t need to see him in a suit.” Curran

The best way to get quiet, other than the combination of extensive therapy, Prozac, and a lobotomy, is first to notice that the station is on. KFKD [K-Fucked] is on every single morning when I sit down at my desk. So I sit for a moment and then say a small prayer--please help me get out of the way so I can write what wants to be written. Sometimes ritual quiets the racket. Try it. Any number of things may work for you--an altar, for instance, or votive candles, sage smudges, small-animal sacrifices, especially now that the Supreme Court has legalized them.

I put the books I was returning on the appropriate desk, and I began looking at the shelves of new arrivals. Most of them were some permutation on self-help. Going by how popular these books were and how often they were checked out, everyone in Bon Temps should have become perfect by now.

You can speak, I said looking directly at him, I needed him to know I wasn’t afraid. I’d been dealing with wandering souls, which is what I like to think of them as, all my life. They didn’t frighten me but I liked to ignore them so they would go away. If they ever thought I could see them, they followed me. He continued to watch me with an amused expression on his face. I noticed his crooked grin produced a single dimple. The dimple didn’t seem to fit with his cold, arrogant demeanor. As much as his presence annoyed me, I couldn’t help but admit this soul could only be labeled as ridiculously gorgeous. Yes, I speak. Were you expecting me to be mute? I leaned my hip against the desk. Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. You’re the first one who has ever spoken to me. A frown creased his forehead. The first one? He appeared genuinely surprised he wasn’t the first dead person I could see. He was definitely the most unique soul I’d ever seen. Ignoring a soul who could talk was going to be

Seeing yourself as part of a creative lineage will help you feel less alone as you start making your own stuff. I hang pictures of my favourite artists in my studio. They're like friendly ghosts. I can almost feel them pushing me forward as I'm hunched over my desk.

Wow,” the bobcat muttered from his desk. “Your sister’s right. Your legs really are skinny.” Toni briefly thought about swiping all the cat’s crap off his desk, but that wasn’t something she’d do to anyone who wasn’t one of her siblings. But that was the beauty of being one of the Jean-Louis Parker clan . . . sometimes you didn’t have to do anything at all, because there was a sibling there to take care of it for you. “It must be hard,” Kyle mused to the bobcat. “One of the superior cats. Revered and adored throughout history as far back as the ancient Egyptians. And yet here you sit. At a desk. A common drone. Taking orders from lowly canines and bears. Do your ancestors call to you from the great beyond, hissing their disappointment to you? Do they cry out in despair at where you’ve ended up despite such a lofty bloodline? Or does your hatred spring from the feline misery of always being alone? Skulking along, wishing you had a mate or a pack or pride to call your own? But all you have is you . . . and your pathetic job as a drone? Does it break your feline heart to be so . . . average? So common? So . . . human?” Toni cringed, which helped her not laugh.

Ten good lines out of four hundred, Emily—comparatively good, that is—and all the rest balderdash—balderdash, Emily." "I—suppose so," said Emily faintly. Her eyes brimmed with tears—her lips quivered. She could not help it. Pride was hopelessly submerged in the bitterness of her disappointment. She felt exactly like a candle that somebody had blown out. "What are you crying for? demanded Mr. Carpenter. Emily blinked away tears and tried to laugh. "I—I'm sorry—you think it's no good—" she said. Mr. Carpenter gave the desk a mighty thump. "No good! Didn't I tell you there were ten good lines? Jade, for ten righteous men Sodom had been spared." "Do you mean—that—after all—" The candle was being relighted again. "Of course, I mean. If at thirteen you can write ten good lines, at twenty you'll write ten times ten—if the gods are kind. Stop messing over months, though—and don't imagine you're a genius, either, if you have written ten decent lines. I think there's something trying to speak through you—but you'll have to make yourself a fit instrument for it. You've got to work hard and sacrifice—by gad, girl, you've chosen a jealous goddess. And she never lets her votaries go—not even when she shuts her ears forever to their plea.

I traded with Jesiba for your freedom last week. I have the papers in my desk. I wanted to throw a party for it- to surprise you.' The bathroom door began warping, bending. Bryce sobbed. 'I bought you and now I set you free, Lehabah.' Lehabah's smile didn't falter. 'I know,' she said. 'I peeked in your drawer.' And despite the monster trying to break loose behind them, Bryce choked on a laugh before she begged. 'You are a free person- you do not have to do this. You are free, Lehabah.' Yet Lehabah remained at the foot of the stairs. 'Then let the world know that my first act of freedom was to help my friends.

I bought a desk on Craigslist. A nice couple arrived to deliver it. The woman called me, said they were outside. We can help you carry it in, but I understand if you don’t want us in your home, because you know, Craigslist people. I just don’t want to— The man said, Well how else is she going to carry the desk? I understood what the woman meant, that a transaction as simple as receiving a piece of furniture from a stranger possessed an inherent threat, that any time we met someone online, we must scan for signs of assault, rape, death, etc. We knew this. But the guy did not speak this language; he just saw a desk.

I soon forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Until, that is, an old man shuffled in and propped himself, hunched and wheezing, over the check-in desk. Karen asked him if he needed assistance. “No,” he grunted sucking on his teeth, “your wet-T-shirt librarian with the punk rock hair is helping me out just fine.

Librarians are trained to be polite, patient, and helpful, no matter who stands across the reference desk.The most important thing is that we look them in the eye and take them seriously. Our work demands that we become dreamers, holding onto hope that our society can be better, that we affirm for our patrons that they are still part of this society, no matter how marginalized they have become. I was raised on the notion that the public library is a civilizing institution. And if our work calms someone's demons or teaches someone else how to treat the mentally ill with respect, then I am proud to be part of the process.

V? Answer the question or so help me God I'll beat it out of you." "I just know how to find him." "What are you hiding?" V went over to the bar, poured himself a couple of fingers of Grey Goose, and hammered the shot. He swallowed a number of times and then let the words fly. "I fed him." A chorus of inhales floated a...round the room. As Wrath rose in disbelief, V poured himself another hit of Goose. "You did what?" The last word was bellowed. "I had him drink some of me." "Vishous..." Wrath stalked around the desk, shitkickers hitting the floor like boulders. The king got face-to-face close. "He's a male. He's human. What the fuck were you thinking?" More vodka. Definitely time for more Goose.

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.

He set the RAM on the desk, then reached into his back pocket to pull out his grimoire. The size of a small paperback novel, it'd been a gift from Ambrose to help him understand some of the madness that surrounded him, and to answer some of the "other" questions that came up. "All right, Nashira," Nick said in a low tone. "Talk to me. What the heck is watching me?" He slid his knife out of his pocket, opened the book, and pricked his finger, allowing three drops of blood to touch a blank page. "Dredanya eire coulet" he whispered, waking the female spirit who lived inside the enchanted pages. The moment he finished speaking, his blood began swirling until it formed words: Do not fear that which cannot be seen. For they are lost in between. 'Tis the ones who come alive That your blood will allow to thrive. Nick snorted at the cryptic stanzas. "Not really useful, Nashira. Doesn't answer my question." His blood crawled over to the next page. Answer, answer, you always say, But it doesn't work that way. In time, the truth you shall find. And then you will understand my rhyme. "I'm such a masochist to even try talking to you" Underneath the words, a picture of an obscene gesture formed. "Oh very nice, Nashira. Very nice. Wherever did you learn that?" In your pocket I reside. Ever privy to your deride. But more than that, I can see. And that includes bathroom stall graffiti Nick screwed his face up in distaste. "Oh my God, no. Tell me you haven't been spying on me in the rest room. You perv!" Calm yourself, you evil troll. My job is not to console. But if it is privacy you seek, Leave me in your backpack so I can't peek. Now he understood why other people got so aggravated with his attitude disorder. He wanted to strangle his book.

Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.

NINA Your life is beautiful. TRIGORIN I see nothing especially lovely about it. [He looks at his watch] Excuse me, I must go at once, and begin writing again. I am in a hurry. [He laughs] You have stepped on my pet corn, as they say, and I am getting excited, and a little cross. Let us discuss this bright and beautiful life of mine, though. [After a few moments' thought] Violent obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write! Hardly have I finished one book than something urges me to write another, and then a third, and then a fourth--I write ceaselessly. I am, as it were, on a treadmill. I hurry for ever from one story to another, and can't help myself. Do you see anything bright and beautiful in that? Oh, it is a wild life! Even now, thrilled as I am by talking to you, I do not forget for an instant that an unfinished story is awaiting me. My eye falls on that cloud there, which has the shape of a grand piano; I instantly make a mental note that I must remember to mention in my story a cloud floating by that looked like a grand piano. I smell heliotrope; I mutter to myself: a sickly smell, the colour worn by widows; I must remember that in writing my next description of a summer evening. I catch an idea in every sentence of yours or of my own, and hasten to lock all these treasures in my literary store-room, thinking that some day they may be useful to me. As soon as I stop working I rush off to the theatre or go fishing, in the hope that I may find oblivion there, but no! Some new subject for a story is sure to come rolling through my brain like an iron cannonball. I hear my desk calling, and have to go back to it and begin to write, write, write, once more. And so it goes for everlasting. I cannot escape myself, though I feel that I am consuming my life. To prepare the honey I feed to unknown crowds, I am doomed to brush the bloom from my dearest flowers, to tear them from their stems, and trample the roots that bore them under foot. Am I not a madman? Should I not be treated by those who know me as one mentally diseased? Yet it is always the same, same old story, till I begin to think that all this praise and admiration must be a deception, that I am being hoodwinked because they know I am crazy, and I sometimes tremble lest I should be grabbed from behind and whisked off to a lunatic asylum. The best years of my youth were made one continual agony for me by my writing. A young author, especially if at first he does not make a success, feels clumsy, ill-at-ease, and superfluous in the world. His nerves are all on edge and stretched to the point of breaking; he is irresistibly attracted to literary and artistic people, and hovers about them unknown and unnoticed, fearing to look them bravely in the eye, like a man with a passion for gambling, whose money is all gone. I did not know my readers, but for some reason I imagined they were distrustful and unfriendly; I was mortally afraid of the public, and when my first play appeared, it seemed to me as if all the dark eyes in the audience were looking at it with enmity, and all the blue ones with cold indifference. Oh, how terrible it was! What agony!

There may be a Nurse Ratched-like listing of things that must be done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed. But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk.

Have you ever had a lyric from a really crappy song or advertising jingle get stuck in your head? Something that just won't go away, no matter how much you don't want it to be there? Imagine if, instead of a silly piece of music, it was an image. Imagine that image was something you found disturbing; say, rivers of rich burgundy blood gushing from slashes in your forearms. What if, instead of this being a fleeting, irritating image, it took hold in your mind. It would be there on waking, it would push itself into your thoughts while you were watching television, driving, sitting at your desk. What if, gradually, your mind became your own personal continuously screening horror movie, starring yourself. What would you do? Would you feel compelled to act on these thoughts? Do you think, if you did, it would help? Would you think yourself mad? Would you tell anyone?

Ms. Terwilliger didn’t have a chance to respond to my geological ramblings because someone knocked on the door. I slipped the rocks into my pocket and tried to look studious as she called an entry. I figured Zoe had tracked me down, but surprisingly, Angeline walked in. "Did you know," she said, "that it’s a lot harder to put organs back in the body than it is to get them out?" I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “Please tell me you haven’t eviscerated someone.” She shook her head. “No, no. I left my biology homework in Miss Wentworth’s room, but when I went back to get it, she’d already left and locked the door. But it’s due tomorrow, and I’m already in trouble in there, so I had to get it. So, I went around outside, and her window lock wasn’t that hard to open, and I—” "Wait," I interrupted. "You broke into a classroom?" "Yeah, but that’s not the problem." Behind me, I heard a choking laugh from Ms. Terwilliger’s desk. "Go on," I said wearily. "Well, when I climbed through, I didn’t realize there was a bunch of stuff in the way, and I crashed into those plastic models of the human body she has. You know, the life size ones with all the parts inside? And bam!" Angeline held up her arms for effect. "Organs everywhere." She paused and looked at me expectantly. "So what are we going to do? I can’t get in trouble with her." "We?" I exclaimed. "Here," said Ms. Terwilliger. I turned around, and she tossed me a set of keys. From the look on her face, it was taking every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. "That square one’s a master. I know for a fact she has yoga and won’t be back for the rest of the day. I imagine you can repair the damage—and retrieve the homework—before anyone’s the wiser.” I knew that the “you” in “you can repair” meant me. With a sigh, I stood up and packed up my things. “Thanks,” I said. As Angeline and I walked down to the science wing, I told her, “You know, the next time you’ve got a problem, maybe come to me before it becomes an even bigger problem.” "Oh no," she said nobly. "I didn’t want to be an inconvenience." Her description of the scene was pretty accurate: organs everywhere. Miss Wentworth had two models, male and female, with carved out torsos that cleverly held removable parts of the body that could be examined in greater detail. Wisely, she had purchased models that were only waist-high. That was still more than enough of a mess for us, especially since it was hard to tell which model the various organs belonged to. I had a pretty good sense of anatomy but still opened up a textbook for reference as I began sorting. Angeline, realizing her uselessness here, perched on a far counter and swing her legs as she watched me. I’d started reassembling the male when I heard a voice behind me. "Melbourne, I always knew you’d need to learn about this kind of thing. I’d just kind of hoped you’d learn it on a real guy." I glanced back at Trey, as he leaned in the doorway with a smug expression. “Ha, ha. If you were a real friend, you’d come help me.” I pointed to the female model. “Let’s see some of your alleged expertise in action.” "Alleged?" He sounded indignant but strolled in anyways. I hadn’t really thought much about asking him for help. Mostly I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I had more important things to do with my time. It was only when he came to a sudden halt that I realized my mistake. "Oh," he said, seeing Angeline. "Hi." Her swinging feet stopped, and her eyes were as wide as his. “Um, hi.” The tension ramped up from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, and everyone seemed at a loss for words. Angeline jerked her head toward the models and blurted out. “I had an accident.” That seemed to snap Trey from his daze, and a smile curved his lips. Whereas Angeline’s antics made me want to pull out my hair sometimes, he found them endearing.

My second wife left me because she said I was too ambitious. She didn't realize that it is only the dying who are free from ambition. And they probably have the ambition to live. Some men disguise their ambition--that's all. I was in a position to help this young man my wife loved. He soon showed his ambition then. There are different types of ambition - that is all, and my wife found she preferred mine. Because it was limitless. They do not feel the infinite is an unworthy rival, but for a man to prefer the desk of an assistant manager - that is an insult.

Nick was waiting for him. Gabriel hesitated. He wished those text messages had come with some kind of sign, whether Nick was pissed or exasperated or just completely done with him. Hell, a freaking emoticon would have been helpful. His own room sat pitch-dark at the opposite end of the hallway. A black hole. Gabriel eased around the creaky spot in the floor and slid past his twin's room. Once in his own, he flung his duffel bag onto the ground and shut the door, closing the dark around himself. He sighed and kicked his shoes into the well of blackness under the bed. Maybe Nick hadn't heard him. Maybe he thought he was still out in the car. "You are so predictable." Gabriel swore and fumbled for the light switch. Nick was straddling his desk chair backward, his arms folded on the backrest. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Gabriel snapped. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?" His twin shrugged. Because I knew you'd walk right past my room.

The thing we would articulate, far too late, as it turned out, was that when a building’s burning, no one just whispers, “Fire!” No one sits quietly at their desk, diligently completing their work and checking for typos while the smoke pours in overhead. No one cries for “help” softly, under their breath, so as not to disturb their neighbors. So why did we? Shhh, don’t tell anyone but … Keep this quiet, please, but … We haven’t told anyone else, but … This stays between us, but …

There are many paths leading to a garden and many experiences awaiting those who venture in. No matter what your motive—whether to grow healthy, delicious food; spend time outdoors feeling more alive than your desk job allows; help save the planet; find relaxation, solace, or healing; meet your neighbors; get your hands in the sweet earth; or discover for yourself just how abundant and generous nature can be—a garden rarely disappoints. It’s a magnet for life in all its quirky, beautiful forms.

So look," he began, leaning over the desk, "I was—" "Excuse me?" Bethany said. Her voice was loud, even. Wes turned and looked at her. As he did so, I watched his profile, his arm, that little bit of the heart in hand peeking out from his sleeve. "We can help you over here," Bethany said to him. "Did you have a question?" "Um, sort of," Wes said, glancing at me, a mild smile on his face. "But—" "I can answer it," Bethany said solidly, so confidently. Amanda, beside her, nodded, seconding this. "Really, it's fine," he said, then looked at me again. He raised his eyebrows, and I just shrugged. "Okay, so—" "She's only a trainee, she won't know the answer," Bethany told him, pushing her chair over closer to where he was, her voice too loud, bossy even. "It's better if you ask me. Or ask us." Then, and only then, did I see the tiniest flicker of annoyance on Wes's face. "You know," Wes said, "I think she'll know it." "She won't. Ask me." Now it wasn't just a flicker. Wes looked at me, narrowing his eyes, and for a second I just stared back. Whatever happens, I thought, happens. For the first time, time at the info desk was flying. "Okay," he said slowly, moving down the counter. He leaned on his elbows, closer to Bethany, and she sat up even straighter, readying herself, like someone onJeopardy awaiting the Daily Double. "So here's my question." Amanda picked up a pen, as if there might be a written portion. "Last night," Wes said, his voice serious, "when the supplies were being packed up, what happened to the big tongs?" The sick part was that Bethany, for a second, looked as if she was actually flipping through her mental Rolodex for the answer. I watched her swallow, then purse her lips. "Well," she said. But that was all. I could feel myself smiling. A real smile. Wes looked at Amanda. "Do you know?" Amanda shook her head slowly. "All right," he said, turning back to look at me. "Better ask the trainee, then. Macy?" I could feel Amanda and Bethany looking at me. "They're in the bottom of that cart with the broken back wheel, under the aprons," I said. "There wasn't room for them with the other serving stuff.

All the world’s a stage. Creative work is a kind of theater. The stage is your studio, your desk, or your workstation. The costume is your outfit—your painting pants, your business suit, or that funny hat that helps you think. The props are your materials, your tools, and your medium. The script is just plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there—just time measured out for things to happen.

Sir Bird preens next to me, tucking feathers into place with a low noise in his throat almost like he’s talking to himself. A slow smile spreads across Finn’s face as he rubs his knuckles—black and blue with several bruises from Sir Bird’s beak. “Let’s see,” he says, flipping through his father’s book. “Here! I’ll need some water in a shallow bowl . . . ink . . . yes, I think this is everything.” He gathers the items, then reads over the entry several times, eyebrows knit in concentration. Dipping his pen in the ink, he whispers strange words while writing on the surface of the water. The ink drips down, elongating the form of the symbols that still hover where he wrote them. I recognize one—change. But the rest I haven’t learned yet. Then, without warning, he lifts up the bowl and dumps the whole thing onto Sir Bird. Only instead of getting wet, as the water washes over his body, Sir Bird’s feathers turn . . . blue. Bright, brilliant, shimmering blue. Squawking in outrage, Sir Bird hops and flies around the room, frantically shaking his feathers. He lands on the desk with a scrabble of clawed feet, then begins trying to bite off the color. “Ha!” Finn says, pointing at his knuckles. “Now you’re black and blue, too!” I can’t help but laugh at my poor, panicking bird. Not to mention the ridiculous pettiness of Finn’s magic show. Picking up Sir Bird, I stroke his feathers and speak softly to him. “Hush now. I’ll make him fix you. You’re still very handsome, but blue isn’t your color, is it?” He caws mournfully, still pulling at his own feathers. “Finn.” He puts his hands behind his back, trying to look innocent. “What? He deserved it.” “He’s a bird. You can’t really find this much satisfaction in revenge against a bird, can you?” His voice comes out just a tad petulant. “He started it.

It’s that time of the month again… As we head into those dog days of July, Mike would like to thank those who helped him get the toys he needs to enjoy his summer. Thanks to you, he bought a new bass boat, which we don’t need; a condo in Florida, where we don’t spend any time; and a $2,000 set of golf clubs…which he had been using as an alibi to cover the fact that he has been remorselessly banging his secretary, Beebee, for the last six months. Tragically, I didn’t suspect a thing. Right up until the moment Cherry Glick inadvertently delivered a lovely floral arrangement to our house, apparently intended to celebrate the anniversary of the first time Beebee provided Mike with her special brand of administrative support. Sadly, even after this damning evidence-and seeing Mike ram his tongue down Beebee’s throat-I didn’t quite grasp the depth of his deception. It took reading the contents of his secret e-mail account before I was convinced. I learned that cheap motel rooms have been christened. Office equipment has been sullied. And you should think twice before calling Mike’s work number during his lunch hour, because there’s a good chance that Beebee will be under his desk “assisting” him. I must confess that I was disappointed by Mike’s over-wrought prose, but I now understand why he insisted that I write this newsletter every month. I would say this is a case of those who can write, do; and those who can’t do Taxes. And since seeing is believing, I could have included a Hustler-ready pictorial layout of the photos of Mike’s work wife. However, I believe distributing these photos would be a felony. The camera work isn’t half-bad, though. It’s good to see that Mike has some skill in the bedroom, even if it’s just photography. And what does Beebee have to say for herself? Not Much. In fact, attempts to interview her for this issue were met with spaced-out indifference. I’ve had a hard time not blaming the conniving, store-bought-cleavage-baring Oompa Loompa-skinned adulteress for her part in the destruction of my marriage. But considering what she’s getting, Beebee has my sympathies. I blame Mike. I blame Mike for not honoring the vows he made to me. I blame Mike for not being strong enough to pass up the temptation of readily available extramarital sex. And I blame Mike for not being enough of a man to tell me he was having an affair, instead letting me find out via a misdirected floral delivery. I hope you have enjoyed this new digital version of the Terwilliger and Associates Newsletter. Next month’s newsletter will not be written by me as I will be divorcing Mike’s cheating ass. As soon as I press send on this e-mail, I’m hiring Sammy “the Shark” Shackleton. I don’t know why they call him “the Shark” but I did hear about a case where Sammy got a woman her soon-to-be ex-husband’s house, his car, his boat and his manhood in a mayonnaise jar. And one last thing, believe me when I say I will not be letting Mike off with “irreconcilable differences” in divorce court. Mike Terwilliger will own up to being the faithless, loveless, spineless, useless, dickless wonder he is.

I took all the criticism to heart, and I was really really sad for about two full years of my life. I felt like I sucked at the thing I most wanted to do in the world, and that is not a pleasant feeling. I also started feeling like I was a bad person because some people viscerally hated me so much, which is such a dumb, irrational mindset, but I couldn’t help it. I actually thought about quitting many times. I thought, “Shit, I’m trying my best, and people really don’t like me. Maybe I should just quit so that everyone on earth can celebrate.” Then I got angry and thought, “Fuck you, dickheads. You didn’t work all your life to achieve this, I did. And I’m gonna do it, and do it my way, until someone pulls me off this desk.

That's how it is for us servants. No one pays you much heed; mostly you're invisible as furniture. Yet you overhear a conversation here, and add a little gossip there. A writing desk lies open and you cannot help but read a paper. Then you find something, something you should not have found...

With the help of the janitor he screwed on to the side of the desk a pencil sharpener - that highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must.

We walked into my mother's house at 10:30 in the morning at the end of February 1992. I had been gone for three weeks. She had been so desperate about us - she, too, looked thin and haggard. She was stunned to see me walk in, filthy and crawling with lice, with a huge crowd of starving people. We ate and drank clean water; then, before we even washed, I put Marian in a taxi with me and told the driver to go to Nairobi Hospital. We had no money left and I knew Nairobi Hospital was expensive; it was where I had been operated on when the ma'alim broke my skull. But I also knew that there they would help us first and ask to pay later. Saving the baby's life had become the only thing that mattered to me. At the reception desk I announced, "This baby is going to die," and the nurse's eyes went wide with horror. She took him and put a drip in his arm, and very slowly, this tiny shape seemed to uncrumple slightly. After a little while, his eyes opened. The nurse said, "The child will live," and told us to deal with the bill at the cash desk. I asked her who her director was, and found him, and told this middle-aged Indian doctor the whole story. I said I couldn't pay the bill. He took it and tore it up. He said it didn't matter. Then he told me how to look after the baby, and where to get rehydration salts, and we took a taxi home. Ma paid for the taxi and looked at me, her eyes round with respect. "Well done," she said. It was a rare compliment. In the next few days the baby began filling out, growing from a crumpled horror-movie image into a real baby, watchful, alive.

Write the words "The FIve Senses" on an index card and tack it to a bulletin board above your desk. You should have a bulletin board above your desk, if at all possible. Some place where you can tack images, quotes, postcards, scraps of thoughts and ideas that will help remind you of you you are and what you're doing.

When was the last time you went out for an adults-only evening with one or more of your women friends? If you can’t answer that question without checking the calendar on the wall in your kitchen, flipping through the daytimer on your desk or calling up your computerized calendar, Chick Night™ is a concept that is long overdue.

Sweet baby Jesus,” I whisper. Andrew rolls his eyes. “I keep telling you, Noah, he was just some random do-gooder sorcerer. Look him up in the archives—by all accounts, he was a nice guy, but he came really close to outing the community with his insistence on helping humans.” “Forget about history,” Alistair insists. “I want to hear more about this porn party. Exactly what does it involve?” With a shrug, Andrew finally moves away from the door toward his desk. “Well, there are different kinds. The most fun include sex, of course. But since I have no desire to get naked with David—” “Hey!” David exclaims, then shakes his head. “Why am I complaining about that?

You must be the Italian cow now sharing my last name." He looked her up and down with disgust. As I stood, Mel glared, telling me to back the fuck down or else. She moved from behind the desk and stood directly in front of his face, causing his bodyguards to step forward as well. "Old man, you're in my house. That makes you a fucking guest. I don't owe you shit and you will respect me if you want my respect. My name is Melody. Mrs. Callahan if it suits you, but..." She leaned in until their noses were almost touching. She was shorter, but the black heels helped. "If you even call me a cow again I will kill you painfully slow. I don't care how many motherfucking body guards you have." Two of his bodyguards drew their guns and the last had a knife hidden in his sleeve. Shit. I thought as she pulled her gun. Declan and Neal were already backing her up. My father just rolled his eyes and took my mother into the corner, all while drinking his brandy. This was ridiculous. "Lower your weapons," Grandfather said as he glared into her eyes. "The Italian cow..." The moment he said it, three bullets went flying into them. One in the chest, one in the wrist and the other the knee; they all went down like cards. You don't out gun Mel. "What the fuck? Where did she pull the gun out from?" Neal whispered. "I swear, she's a motherfucking ninja.

Today Amanda was dressed in a gown of soft pink wool trimmed in corded silk ribbon of a deeper shade. She had worn a bonnet adorned with China roses, which now reposed on the side of his desk, a pair of velvet ribbons draping gently toward the floor. The pink shade of the gown brought out the color in Amanda's cheeks, while the simple cut displayed her generous figure to its best advantage. Aside from Jack's considerable regard for her intelligence, he couldn't help thinking of her as a tidy little bonbon.

Mrs. Arnold," the doctor said, coming around the desk, "we're not going to help things any this way." "What is going to help?" Mrs. Arnold said. "Is everyone really crazy but me?" "Mrs. Arnold," the doctor said severely, "I want you to get hold of yourself. In a disoriented world like ours today, alienation from reality frequently--" "Disoriented," Mrs. Arnold said. She stood up. "Alienation," she said. "Reality." Before the doctor could stop her she walked to the door and opened it. "Reality," she said, and went out.

Help!” screeched a feminine voice. “HELP ME!” Parker whipped around, automatically reaching for the weapon that he didn’t have at the small of his back because, oh yeah, he was in running gear with no place to hide a weapon. But there was no woman. Just a huge parrot perched on a printer at the front desk. “Help!” it squeaked in a shockingly authentic woman’s voice. “I’ve been turned into a parrot!” “Peanut, play dead,” Wyatt said. Peanut sighed and tucked her head into her feathers. “Good parrot.” Wyatt looked at Parker. “She’s a nut.” “Damn, shit, farts,” the bird muttered beneath her breath, making Parker grin. Wyatt sighed. “Peanut’s a mimic, and Jade, our office manager, has a bit of a potty mouth.” “Boner,” Peanut said, head still tucked into her feathers. “Peanut, dead parrots don’t talk.” Wyatt turned back to Parker. “Follow me.

Now Bobby was sitting behind the reception desk in a peach-colored orderly's uniform, and he didn't look so tough. He also didn't look all that happy to see me. Probably didn't help that his laminated nametag said BOOBY.

The New Groupthink is also practiced in our schools, via an increasingly popular method of instruction called “cooperative” or “small group” learning. In many elementary schools, the traditional rows of seats facing the teacher have been replaced with “pods” of four or more desks pushed together to facilitate countless group learning activities. Even subjects like math and creative writing, which would seem to depend on solo flights of thought, are often taught as group projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited, a big sign announced the “Rules for Group Work,” including, YOU CAN’T ASK A TEACHER FOR HELP UNLESS EVERYONE IN YOUR GROUP HAS THE SAME QUESTION.

She described how Camus’s aphorism “One must imagine Sisyphus happy” helps her fight back against unproductive feelings of meaninglessness. If we consider, like Camus, Sisyphus at the foot of his mountain, we can see that he is smiling. He is content in his task of defying the Gods, the journey more important than the goal. To achieve a beginning, a middle, an end, a meaning to the chaos of creation—that's more than any deity seems to manage: But it's what writers do. So I tidy the desk, even polish it up a bit, stick some flowers in a vase and start. As I begin a novel I remind myself as ever of Camus's admonition that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. And even while thinking, well, fat chance! I find courage, reach for the heights, and if the rock keeps rolling down again so it does. What the hell, start again. Rewrite. Be of good cheer. Smile on, Sisyphus!

KEVIN: But there are many reasons we have to do our broadcasting from here. LAUREN: It sends a message. KEVIN: It sure does. It sends several fun messages for everyone to enjoy. Anyway, the boys in Sales, who are all named Shawn, came by and with their help I was able to make this studio feel a little more like home. They put up a bit of a fuss about the changes, but that's just because no one likes change. There are some people who don't understand progress, you know. LAUREN: I'll miss the Shawns. KEVIN: I'll miss them too, but look how much nicer this places looks. You can see the Shawns' contributions all over the desk. LAUREN: And running down the walls. Yes, SO much nicer.

Women occupied many of the cubicles; they answered phones and sat in front of typewriters, but they also made hieroglyphic marks on transparent slides and conferred with my father and other men in the office on the stacks of documents that littered their desks. That so many of them were African American, many of them my grandmother’s age, struck me as simply a part of the natural order of things: growing up in Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine.

Utensil While feasting On venison stew After we buried my mother, I recognized my spoon And realized my family Had been using it For at least forty-two years. How does one commemorate The ordinary? I thanked The spoon for being a spoon And finished my stew. How does one get through A difficult time? How does A son properly mourn his mother? It helps to run the errands-- To get shit done. I washed That spoon, dried it, And put it back In the drawer, But I did it consciously, Paying attention To my hands, my wrists, And the feel of steel Against my fingertips. Then my wife drove us back Home to Seattle, where I wrote This poem about ordinary Grief. Thank you, poem, For being a poem. Thank you, Paper and ink, for being paper And ink. Thank you, desk, For being a desk. Thank you, Mother, for being my mother. Thank you for your imperfect love. It almost worked. It mostly worked. Or partly worked. It was almost enough.

I see. And do you have this client’s room number?” “Nah.” “Do you have his Gizmo ID?” “Nah.” I pulled a compact out of my handbag and checked my ruby-red lipstick. “I’m sorry, madam”—she looked me up and down—“I’m unable to help you if you don’t have his room number or some other proof that you’ve been invited.” I shot her a bitchy glare (I’m good at that). “Oh, he wants me here all right. For an hour.” I set the compact on her desk and fished around in my handbag. She leaned away from the compact like she might catch a disease from it. I pulled out a piece of paper and read: “Jin Chu. Canton Artemis. Arcade District. Aldrin Bubble.” I put the paper away. “Just call the fuckin’ guy, okay? I got other customers after this.

He reaches under the desk and takes out a book. It is thick, with a worn cover and frayed edges. On it is printed HUMAN BIOLOGY. “It’s a little rudimentary, but this book helped to teach me what it is to be human,” he says. “To be such a complicated, mysterious piece of biological machinery, and more amazing still, to have the capacity to analyze that machinery! That is a special thing, unprecedented in all of evolutionary history. Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human.

It would have been helpful if there was a Mayo Clinic chapter about the topic of "leaving." Man, I would have read that chapter over and over -- leaving your wailing baby in the morning without wanting to slit your wrists; leaving your desk even though you are only a half hour away from completing something that would feel so good to wrap up; leaving the building so no one notices that you are actually leaving. I was much more interested in honing that skill than learning how to puree apples and carrots to freeze in ice-cube trays (not that I ever did that either). As long as I was a full-time working mother with a clock to punch or a train to catch -- as I would be for eight more years -- I never figured out how to leave with grace or with so-called conviction.

Vane, you okay in there?” my mom calls through my door. I jump so hard I crash into my desk and knock off some books and video game cases. If my mom comes in and finds a gorgeous girl in a skimpy dress passed out on my worn gray rug, I’ll be grounded for the rest of eternity. Especially since all I have on at the moment are my Batman boxers. Pretty sure she won’t buy my ghost-guardian angel/freak-of-nature theories either. I stumble toward the door, prepared to barricade it with my dresser if I have to. “I’m fine, Mom,” I say as I grab the first T-shirt I see off my floor and throw it on, along with my gym shorts. “Then what’s all that banging?” Come on, Vane. Think! Inspiration strikes. “I found a date roach in my bed.” “Did you kill it?” My mom sounds farther away, like she jumped back. “I tried to, but now I can’t find it.” I don’t need to worry about my mom offering to help. She’s a big believer in the whole boys should kill all the bugs philosophy. “Well, I won’t distract you, then,” she says, and I can’t help smiling.

The only person there was little Sipho Fondini from Standard Six, writing on the wall: "Liberation first, then education." He saw me and called out: "Is the spelling right, Mr M?" And he meant it! The young eyes in that smoke-stained little face were terribly serious. Somewhere else a police van raced past me crowded with children who should have also been at their desks in school. Their hands waving desperately through the bars, their voices called out: "Teacher! Teacher! Help us! Tell our mothers! Tell or fathers!

Hazel sometimes had a fantasy daydream at school where the teacher walked into the classroom and yelled, ISN’T EVERYTHING HORRIBLE? DOESN’T THE PAIN OF THE WORLD OUTWEIGH THE JOY BY TRILLIONS? WOULD YOU LIKE TO PUSH ALL OF THE DESKS INTO THE CENTER OF THE ROOM AND BURN THEM IN A GIANT BONFIRE? THEN WE CAN RUN AROUND SCREAMING AND WEEPING AMIDST THE SMOKE IN A TRUTHFUL PARADE OF OUR HUMAN CONDITION. SINCE YOU ARE SMALL STATURED, CHILDREN, IT MIGHT HELP OTHERS TO FEEL THE FULL BRUNT OF YOUR AGITATION IF YOU WAVE STICKS AND SHRUBBERY OVER YOUR HEADS ALL THE WHILE. WE DON’T WANT TO KILL ANYTHING WE DON’T HAVE TO KILL; EVERYTHING LIVING THAT WE’VE EVER SEEN OR KNOWN WILL DIE WITHOUT OUR INTERVENTION, OURSELVES INCLUDED; THIS IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL LEAD BLANKET THAT EVEN OUR MOST PERVASIVE MOMENTS OF COMFORT CANNOT CRAWL OUT FROM UNDER AND ONE UNEXTINGUISHABLE SOURCE OF DESPAIR, SO WE WON’T BE PERFORMING ANY RITUALISTIC SACRIFICES; THAT’S NOT THE DIRECTION WE WILL GO IN JUST YET; HOWEVER, ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL LAWRENCE IS ON THE PROWL FOR A ROAD CARCASS WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE AS A REPRESENTATIVE PROP BECAUSE NOWHERE IN OUR AUTUMN-THEMED POSTER BOARD DéCOR IS MORBIDITY OR DECAY SYMBOLIZED. OUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS CANNOT AGREE ON HOW BEST TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE BOUNDLESSNESS OF HUMAN CRUELTY. IN OUR SOCIETY SOME OF YOU ARE FAR SAFER AND MORE ADVANTAGED THAN OTHERS; AT HOME SOME OF YOU ARE FAR MORE LOVED; SOME OF YOU WILL FIND THAT CONCEPTS LIKE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE WILL BE THIN, FLICKERING HOLOGRAMS ON THE PERIPHERY OF YOUR LIVES. OH, LOOK, CHILDREN—I SEE MR. LAWRENCE IN THE DISTANCE DRAGGING A PORTION OF A HIGHWAY-SLAUGHTERED DEER. LET’S GO HELP HIM LUG IT INSIDE AND BE REMINDED THAT WE TOO INHABIT BODIES MADE OF MEAT-WRAPPED BONES; LET’S MEDITATE ON THIS CORPOREAL TERROR. Whenever her mother had asked, Hazel always told her, School is great.

Grandma took a deep breath. “For the past couple of months, I’ve helped Zoe send letters to Marcus. Now, before you—” “You what?” Mom yelled, looking back and forth between Grandma and me. I kept my mouth shut. “You had no right!” Mom said to Grandma. Grandma crossed her arms. “A daughter should be able to know her father, even if he is in prison.” “Father.” Mom laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” “Now, listen. You never gave him a chance to be a dad to Zoe.” “As if you don’t know why!” Mom said, lifting her hands in the air. “I mean, seriously, Mom.

One day in September 2015, FBI agent Adrian Hawkins placed a call to the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., and asked to speak to the person in charge of technology. He was routed to the DNC help desk, which transferred the call to Yared Tamene, a young IT specialist with The MIS Department, a consulting firm hired by the DNC. After identifying himself, Hawkins told Tamene that he had reason to believe that at least one computer on the DNC’s network was compromised. He asked if the DNC was aware of this and what it was doing. Tamene had nothing to do with cybersecurity and knew little about the subject. He was a mid-level network administrator; his basic IT duties for the DNC were to set up computer accounts for employees and be on call to deal with any problems. When he got the call, Tamene was wary. Was this a joke or, worse, a dirty trick? He asked Hawkins if he could prove he was an FBI agent, and, as Tamene later wrote in a memo, “he did not provide me with an adequate response.… At this point, I had no way of differentiating the call I received from a prank call.” Hawkins, though, was real. He was a well-regarded agent in the FBI’s cyber squad. And he was following a legitimate lead in a case that would come to affect a presidential election. Earlier in the year, U.S. cyber warriors intercepted a target list of about thirty U.S. government agencies, think tanks, and several political organizations designated for cyberattacks by a group of hackers known as APT 29. APT stood for Advanced Persistent Threat—technojargon for a sophisticated set of actors who penetrate networks, insert viruses, and extract data over prolonged periods of time.

Some parents have taught their small children, “Go to the manager,” but this poses the same problem of identification as with the policeman: That small name tag is several feet above the child’s eye-line. I don’t believe in teaching inflexible rules because it’s not possible to know they’ll apply in all situations. There is one, however, that reliably enhances safety: Teach children that if they are ever lost, Go to a Woman. Why? First, if your child selects a woman, it’s highly unlikely that the woman will be a sexual predator. Next, as Jan’s story illustrates, a woman approached by a lost child asking for help is likely to stop whatever she is doing, commit to that child, and not rest until the child is safe. A man approached by a small child might say, “Head over there to the manager’s desk,” whereas a woman will get involved and stay involved.

Dear Jessa, I’ve started this letter so many times and I’ve never been able to finish it. So here goes again . . . I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Riley is dead. I’m sorry for ignoring your emails and for not being there for you. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish it had been me that died and not Riley. If I could go back in time and change everything I would. I’m sorry I left without a word. There’s no excuse for my behaviour but please know that it had nothing to do with you. I was a mess. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone for months. And I felt too guilty and didn’t know how to tell you the truth about what happened. I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing. I got all your emails but I didn’t read them until last week. I couldn’t face it and I guess that makes me the biggest coward you’ll ever meet. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never replied. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. I don’t even know how to ask your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it. I’m just glad you’re doing better. I’m better too. I’ve started seeing a therapist – twice a week – you’d like her. She reminds me of Didi. I never thought I’d be the kind of guy who needed therapy, but they made it a condition of me keeping my job. She’s helped me a lot with getting the panic attacks under control. Working in a room the size of a janitor’s closet helps too – there aren’t too many surprises, only the occasional rogue paperclip. I asked for the posting. I have to thank your dad ironically. The demotion worked out. Kind of funny that I totally get where your father was coming from all those years. Looks like I’ll be spending the remainder of my marine career behind a desk, but I’m OK with that. I don’t know what else to say, Jessa. My therapist says I should just write down whatever comes into my head. So here goes. Here’s what’s in my head . . . I miss you. I love you. Even though I long ago gave up the right to any sort of claim over you, I can’t stop loving you. I won’t ever stop. You’re in my blood. You’re the only thing that got me through this, Jessa. Because even during the bad times, the worst times, the times I’d wake up in a cold sweat, my heart thumping, the times I’d think the only way out was by killing myself and just having it all go away, I’d think of you and it would pull me back out of whatever dark place I’d fallen into. You’re my light, Jessa. My north star. You asked me once to come back to you and I told you I always would. I’m working on it. It might take me a little while, and I know I have no right to ask you to wait for me after everything I’ve done, but I’m going to anyway because the truth is I don’t know how to live without you. I’ve tried and I can’t do it. So please, I’m asking you to wait for me. I’m going to come back to you. I promise. And I’m going to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll never stop trying for the rest of my life to make things right between us. I love you. Always. Kit

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked around the empty lot. I wavered on getting out when a giant lightning bolt painted a jagged streak across the rainy lavender-gray sky. Minutes passed and still he didn’t come out of the Three Hundreds’ building. Damn it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped out of the car, cursing at myself for not carrying an umbrella for about the billionth time and for not having waterproof shoes, and ran through the parking lot, straight through the double doors. As I stomped my feet on the mat, I looked around the lobby for the big guy. A woman behind the front desk raised her eyebrows at me curiously. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. “Have you seen Aiden?” “Aiden?” Were there really that many Aidens? “Graves.” “Can I ask what you need him for?” I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled at the woman who didn’t know me and, therefore, didn’t have an idea that I knew Aiden. “I’m here to pick him up.” It was obvious she didn’t know what to make of me. I didn’t exactly look like pro-football player girlfriend material in that moment, much less anything else. I’d opted not to put on any makeup since I hadn’t planned on leaving the house. Or real pants. Or even a shirt with the sleeves intact. I had cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt with sleeves that I’d taken scissors to. Plus the rain outside hadn’t done my hair any justice. It looked like a cloud of teal. Then there was the whole we-don’t-look-anything-alike thing going on, so there was no way we could pass as siblings. Just as I opened my mouth, the doors that connected the front area with the rest of the training facility swung open. The man I was looking for came out with his bag over his shoulder, imposing, massive, and sweaty. Definitely surly too, which really only meant he looked the way he always did. I couldn’t help but crack a little smile at his grumpiness. “Ready?” He did his form of a nod, a tip of his chin. I could feel the receptionist’s eyes on us as he approached, but I was too busy taking in Grumpy Pants to bother looking at anyone else. Those brown eyes shifted to me for a second, and that time, I smirked uncontrollably. He glared down at me. “What are you smiling at?” I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, trying to give him an innocent look. “Oh, nothing, sunshine.” He mouthed ‘sunshine’ as his gaze strayed to the ceiling. We ran out of the building side by side toward my car. Throwing the doors open, I pretty much jumped inside and shivered, turning the car and the heater on. Aiden slid in a lot more gracefully than I had, wet but not nearly as soaked. He eyed me as he buckled in, and I slanted him a look. “What?” With a shake of his head, he unzipped his duffel, which was sitting on his lap, and pulled out that infamous off-black hoodie he always wore. Then he held it out. All I could do was stare at it for a second. His beloved, no-name brand, extra-extra-large hoodie. He was offering it to me. When I first started working for Aiden, I remembered him specifically giving me instructions on how he wanted it washed and dried. On gentle and hung to dry. He loved that thing. He could own a thousand just like it, but he didn’t. He had one black hoodie that he wore all the time and a blue one he occasionally donned. “For me?” I asked like an idiot. He shook it, rolling his eyes. “Yes for you. Put it on before you get sick. I would rather not have to take care of you if you get pneumonia.” Yeah, I was going to ignore his put-out tone and focus on the ‘rather not’ as I took it from him and slipped it on without another word. His hoodie was like holding a gold medal in my hands. Like being given something cherished, a family relic. Aiden’s precious.

She's probably just tired of seeing you miserable.Like we all are," I add. "I'm sure...I'm sure she's as crazy about you as ever." "Hmm." He watches me put away my own shoes and empty the contents of my pockets. "What about you?" he asks, after a minute. "What about me?" St. Clair examines his watch. "Sideburns. You'll be seeing him next month." He's reestablishing...what? The boundary line? That he's taken, and I'm spoken for? Except I'm not. Not really. But I can't bear to say this now that he's mentioned Ellie. "Yeah,I can't wait to see him again. He's a funny guy, you'd like him.I'm gonna see his band play at Christmas. Toph's a great guy, you'd really like him. Oh. I already said that,didn't I? But you would. He's really...funny." Shut up,Anna. Shut.Up. St. Clair unbuckles and rebuckles and unbuckles his watchband. "I'm beat," I say. And it's the truth. As always, our conversation has exhausted me. I crawl into bed and wonder what he'll do.Lie on my floor? Go back to his room? But he places his watch on my desk and climbs onto my bed. He slides up next to me. He's on top of the covers, and I'm underneath. We're still fully dressed,minus our shoes, and the whole situation is beyond awkward. He hops up.I'm sure he's about to leave,and I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed,but...he flips off my light.My room is pitch-black. He shuffles back toward my bed and smacks into it. "Oof," he says. "Hey,there's a bed there." "Thanks for the warning." "No problem." "It's freezing in here.Do you have a fan on or something?" "It's the wind.My window won't shut all the way.I have a towel stuffed under it, but it doesn't really help." He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says. "Yes?" "My belt.Would it be weird..." I'm thankful he can't see my blush. "Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops.He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. "Um," he says. "Would it be weird-" "Yes." "Oh,piss off.I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath,and now we're lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny,but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being,well,a sleepover. "All we need now are Sixteen Candles and a game of Truth or Dare." He coughs. "Wh-what?" "The movie,pervert.I was just thinking it's been a while since I've had a sleepover." A pause. "Oh." "..." "..." "St. Clair?" "Yeah?" "Your elbow is murdering my back." "Bollocks.Sorry." He shifts,and then shifts again,and then again,until we're comfortable.One of his legs rests against mine.Despite the two layers of pants between us,I feel naked and vulnerable. He shifts again and now my entire leg, from calf to thigh, rests against his. I smell his hair. Mmm. NO! I swallow,and it's so loud.He coughs again. I'm trying not to squirm. After what feels like hours but is surely only minutes,his breath slows and his body relaxes.I finally begin to relax, too. I want to memorize his scent and the touch of his skin-one of his arms, now against mine-and the solidness os his body.No matter what happens,I'll remember this for the rest of my life. I study his profile.His lips,his nose, his eyelashes.He's so beautiful.

Now you've done it." His tone was quietly playful. I couldn't help it.I looked up at him questioningly. "You've added a third word to your repitoire. Hi,thanks,and now yes." His lips turned up at the corners,and the heat rushed to my face. He noticed. "At least that much hasn't changed." I turned back to my notebook,my hands trembling. He leaned toward me. "Now that we have our first conversation out of the way, do you want to tell me where you've been?" From the way he spoke I knew his smile was gone. I could feel little beads of sweat form on my forehead. "You left me.Without a word," he said. He sounded tentative, as if he were trying to keep his voice even. I took in a deep breath,but I couldn't figure out what he was feeling. There wasn't one singular emotion that was stronger than the others. "Don't you have anything to say to me?" He waited. My heart felt like it would burst through my chest into a million little pieces,and I could see this wasn't going to work. I started to close my book. "Don't-" he blurted, and I froze. "Don't go.You don't have to talk to me.I'm the one who should go." His voice sounded achingly sad. I could hear him packing his bag. Say something.Say something. "Um..." Jack paused, as if further movement might stop my words. He was the reason I came back.I couldn't scare him off. As hard as it would be to talk to him,it would be much harder to watch him walk out that door. "No," I said. I took a shaky breath. "You don't...have to leave. Please." He took his book back out and put it on his desk. I followed,setting my own books out. "Thank you," Jack whispered. We didn't talk for the rest of the hour.

I’ve noticed in myself that if something small and ultimately meaningless has gone wrong—I can’t find the file I left on top of my desk, my daughter failed to do what I asked her to do before going to a friend’s house—I can easily get rattled. But if someone calls to inform me of a serious difficulty—someone has been in an accident, or a child is in trouble—I notice a profound stillness come over me as I focus on the problem. In the former case, my temptation to become frantic does not attract solutions, but rather hinders them. There is nothing in my personal energy that invites help from others, nor do I have the clarity to think through what I need to do next.

Seventy percent of US companies now use open-plan offices and hot desking in the hope that these free-form physical structures will provoke free-form thinking. This architectural determinism isn’t entirely convincing—there’s plenty of evidence that people find open workspaces noisy, distracting, and impersonal. Walking through several such workspaces recently, I couldn’t help but notice how hard everyone was working to simulate privacy. Plugged into headphones, surrounded by stacks of books and temporary dividers, defensiveness was more evident than openness. Architecture alone won’t change mindsets and tearing down physical walls won’t demolish the mental silos that trap thinking.

Nabokov, Heinrich von Kleist, Raymond Carver, Jane Bowles, James Baldwin, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant—the list goes on and on. They are the teachers to whom I go, the authorities I consult, the models that still help to inspire me with the energy and courage it takes to sit down at a desk each day and resume the process of learning, anew, to write.

Bring Cecily home,” he said curtly. “I won’t have her at risk, even in the slightest way.” “I’ll take care of Cecily,” came the terse reply. “She’s better off without you in her life.” Tate’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, affronted. “You know what I mean,” Holden said. “Let her heal. She’s too young to consign herself to spinsterhood over a man who doesn’t even see her.” “Infatuation dies,” Tate said. Holden nodded. “Yes, it does. Goodbye.” “So does hero worship,” he continued, laboring the point. “And that’s why after eight years, Cecily has had one raging affair after the other,” he said facetiously. The words had power. They wounded. “You fool,” Holden said in a soft tone. “Do you really think she’d let any man touch her except you?” He went to his office door and gestured toward the desk. “Don’t forget your gadget,” he added quietly. “Wait!” Holden paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned. “What?” Tate held the device in his hands, watching the lights flicker on it. “Mixing two cultures when one of them is all but extinct is a selfish thing,” he said after a minute. “It has nothing to do with personal feelings. It’s a matter of necessity.” Holden let go of the doorknob and moved to stand directly in front of Tate. “If I had a son,” he said, almost choking on the word, “I’d tell him that there are things even more important than lofty principles. I’d tell him…that love is a rare and precious thing, and that substitutes are notoriously unfulfilling.” Tate searched the older man’s eyes. “You’re a fine one to talk.” Holden’s face fell. “Yes, that’s true.” He turned away. Why should he feel guilty? But he did. “I didn’t mean to say that,” Tate said, irritated by his remorse and the other man’s defeated posture. “I can’t help the way I feel about my culture.” “If it weren’t for the cultural difference, how would you feel about Cecily?” Tate hesitated. “It wouldn’t change anything. She’s been my responsibility. I’ve taken care of her. It would be gratitude on her part, even a little hero worship, nothing more. I couldn’t take advantage of that. Besides, she’s involved with Colby.” “And you couldn’t live with being the second man.” Tate’s face hardened. His eyes flashed. Holden shook his head. “You’re just brimming over with excuses, aren’t you? It isn’t the race thing, it isn’t the culture thing, it isn’t even the guardian-ward thing. You’re afraid.” Tate’s mouth made a thin line. He didn’t reply. “When you love someone, you give up control of yourself,” he continued quietly. “You have to consider the other person’s needs, wants, fears. What you do affects the other person. There’s a certain loss of freedom as well.” He moved a step closer. “The point I’m making is that Cecily already fills that place in your life. You’re still protecting her, and it doesn’t matter that there’s another man. Because you can’t stop looking out for her. Everything you said in this office proves that.” He searched Tate’s turbulent eyes. “You don’t like Colby Lane, and it isn’t because you think Cecily’s involved with him. It’s because he’s been tied to one woman so tight that he can’t struggle free of his love for her, even after years of divorce. That’s how you feel, isn’t it, Tate? You can’t get free of Cecily, either. But Colby’s always around and she indulges him. She might marry him in an act of desperation. And then what will you do? Will your noble excuses matter a damn then?

Now,standing under our beautiful monstrosity, I couldn't help thinking that if Alex were to kiss me, it would look like that: me small and blissful and clinging, him so much taller, completely enfolding me. I averted my red dace as I headed down the hall. My room is a quarter the size of his. It felt even smaller with him in it. "Make yourself at-" He'd plunked the snack on my desk, depositied his coat on my chair, and was already roaming the room, looking at the door knockers made to look like hands. "Cool.You are seriously good." He stared for a long time at the single study I'd put up from the Willing Romance Languages Room door: the leering devil. "I would put that on my wall," he said. I hadn't said anything while he browsed, swallowing all the automatic denials of my abilities. He turned and grinned at me, looking exactly like the little demon. No surprise, since it was essentially his face in miniature. "This is the part where you remove that tack and give me the picture.For keeps." "Are you serious?" I wasn't sure. "Yes,Ella.I am serious." So I removed the tack and handed him the picture. He rolled it up very gently and put it in his coat pocket.

If you don't attend, Gwendolen," said the mistress, "and stop looking out of the window, I shall have to give you an order-mark." "But please, Miss Prizzle-" began Gwendolen. "Did you hear what I said, Gwendolen?" asked Miss Prizzle. "But please, Miss Prizzle," said Gwendolen, "there's a LION!" "Take two order-marks for talking nonsense," said Miss Prizzle. "And now-" A roar interrupted her. Ivy came curling in at the windows of the classroom. The walls became a mass of shimmering green, and leafy branches arched overhead where the ceiling had been. Miss Prizzle found she was standing on grass in a forest glade. She clutched at her desk to steady herself, and found that the desk was a rose-bush. Wild people such as she had never even imagined were crowding round her. Then she saw the Lion, screamed and fled, and with her fled her class, who were mostly dumpy, prim little girls with fat legs. Gwendolen hesitated. "You'll stay with us, sweetheart?" said Aslan. "Oh, may I? Thank you, thank you," said Gwendolen. Instantly she joined hands with two of the Maenads, who whirled her round in a merry dance and helped her take off some of the unnecessary and uncomfortable clothes that she was wearing.

Help you?” he said without looking up. I glanced at Meg, silently double-checking that we were in the right building. She nodded. “We’re here to surrender,” I told the guard. Surely this would make him look up. But no. He could not have acted less interested in us. I was reminded of the guest entrance to Mount Olympus, through the lobby of the Empire State Building. Normally, I never went that way, but I knew Zeus hired the most unimpressible, disinterested beings he could find to guard the desk as a way to discourage visitors. I wondered if Nero had intentionally done the same thing here. “I’m Apollo,” I continued. “And this is Meg. I believe we’re expected? As in…hard deadline at sunset or the city burns?” The guard took a deep breath, as if it pained him to move. Keeping one finger in his novel, he picked up a pen and slapped it on the counter next to the sign-in book. “Names. IDs.” “You need our IDs to take us prisoner?” I asked. The guard turned the page in his book and kept reading. With a sigh, I pulled out my New York State junior driver’s license. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I’d have to show it one last time, just to complete my humiliation. I slid it across the counter. Then I signed the logbook for both of us. Name(s): Lester (Apollo) and Meg. Here to see: Nero. Business: Surrender. Time in: 7:16 p.m. Time out: Probably never. Since Meg was a minor, I didn’t expect her to have an ID, but she removed her gold scimitar rings and placed them next to my license. I stifled the urge to shout, Are you insane? But Meg gave them up as if she’d done this a million times before. The guard took the rings and examined them without comment. He held up my license and compared it to my face. His eyes were the color of decade-old ice cubes. He seemed to decide that, tragically, I looked as bad in real life as I did in my license photo. He handed it back, along with Meg’s rings. “Elevator nine to your right,” he announced. I almost thanked him. Then I thought better of it.

Lucifer snapped his fingers and froze them. He didn’t really care what they did to each other, but he’d spent several months in the wild capturing the beast he’d turned into a desk. “Children, children,” he said tucking his hands behind his back and adopting his father figure mode. It usually made his daughter, Muriel, laugh. “Must I remind you that I tasked you with a mission. One that I might add, Ysabel, you should be most eager to complete. What I do not need, is for you to FUCK IT UP!” He let his voice increase in treble until it boomed. “I’ve been more than tolerant, but enough is enough. You will cease bringing me your petty squabbles. You will do the job I assigned. And if you don’t want his tongue in your mouth, Ysabel, then bite it off. Although, really, if you enjoyed it so much, I don’t see what the problem is. Maybe he can help you remove the stick up your ass if you let him kiss the other end. Now, if we’re done here, and since I’m boss, and I say we are, leave and don’t come back until you’re done, because if you do, I’m duct taping the pair of you together and throwing you in a dark room until you learn to get along. Or fuck. I don’t really care which, but I prefer the latter so I can watch.

Uh, now let me tell you about what's new. We found another set of drawings, always nice, AND A FOXY HEAD! Which we think could be authentic! Then again, it might just be another crappy cosplay. And we found a Desk fan, very old school, metal though, so watch the fingers! Uh, heh! Uhm, right now the place is basically just, you know, FLASHING LIGHTS and SPOOKY PROPS. I honestly thought we'd have more by now, uh so if we don't have anything really cool by next week, we may have to suit you up in a Freddy suit, and make you walk around saying: "BOOO!" Hehe. Uh, but you know like I said, were trying to track down, a good lead right now. Uh, some guy who helped design one of the buildings, said there was like, an extra room that got boarded up..? Or something like that.  So! Were gonna take a peak, and see what we can find. Uh, for now just get comfortable with the new

Look at it this way—before any of this wood became parts of the shelves or the desk or the chair, all of it was in pieces—just pieces of wood. But the wood was full of potential. It could be shaped into anything that a carpenter wanted it to be shaped into, turning it into a beautiful finished product. Now, not all carpenters are equal in skill—you know that. If a piece of wood is shaped by a poor carpenter, the finished product will be lacking somehow, in some way. "But if that wood is shaped by a master carpenter, then that piece will fit into this world precisely as it’s supposed to fit, whether it be a desktop or a cabinet shelf or a doorstop. And the way that I work wood is the way I try to work with people—with love and attention and caring—so that the wood and the people can reach their potential. And if someone lets you teach them, and is open to what you have to teach, then how can you go wrong?

The handyman who'd helped rescue them was sitting at the front desk, his arm propped on his toolbox as he listened to a handheld radio, and he waved when he saw them. "How were the stairs?" Better than the elevator," Owen said. "Any news?" "No power until tomorrow at the earliest," he reported, his mustache twitching. "They're saying it goes all the way up into Canada." He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "It must be quite a sight from up in space.

Been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky I did . . . lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight.” “Severus —” Lupin began, but Snape overrode him. “I’ve told the headmaster again and again that you’re helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here’s the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout —” “Severus, you’re making a mistake,” said Lupin urgently. “You haven’t heard everything — I can explain — Sirius is not here to kill Harry —” “Two more for Azkaban tonight,” said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically. “I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this. . . . He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin . . . a tame werewolf —” “You fool,” said Lupin softly. “Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?” BANG! Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape’s wand and twisted themselves around Lupin’s mouth, wrists, and ankles; he overbalanced and fell to the floor, unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black’s eyes. “Give me a reason,” he whispered. “Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will.” Black stopped dead. It would have been impossible to say which face showed more hatred.

Discreet as you are, Rohan, one can’t help but notice how ardently you are pursued. It seems you hold quite an appeal for the ladies of London. And from all appearances, you’ve taken full advantage of what’s been offered.” Cam stared at him without expression. “Pardon, but are you leading to an actual point, my lord?” Leaning back in his chair, St. Vincent made a temple of his elegant hands and regarded Cam steadily. “Since you’ve had no problem with lack of desire in the past, I can only assume that, as happens with other appetites, yours has been sated with an overabundance of sameness. A bit of novelty may be just the thing.” Considering the statement, which actually made sense, Cam wondered if the notorious former rake had ever been tempted to stray. Having known Evie since childhood, when she had come to visit her widowed father at the club from time to time, Cam felt as protective of her as if she’d been his younger sister. No one would have paired the gentle-natured Evie with such a libertine. And perhaps no one had been as surprised as St. Vincent himself to discover their marriage of convenience had turned into a passionate love match. “What of married life?” Cam asked softly. “Does it eventually become an overabundance of sameness?” St. Vincent’s expression changed, the light blue eyes warming at the thought of his wife. “It has become clear to me that with the right woman, one can never have enough. I would welcome an overabundance of such bliss—but I doubt such a thing is mortally possible.” Closing the account book with a decisive thud, he stood from the desk. “If you’ll excuse me, Rohan, I’ll bid you good night.” “What about finishing the accounting?” “I’ll leave the rest in your capable hands.” At Cam’s scowl, St. Vincent shrugged innocently. “Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?” And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office.

Paradise, blooded daughter of Abalone, First Adviser to the King, frowned at the screen of her Apple lappy. She’d set herself up here in her father’s library ever since he’d started working each night for Wrath, son of Wrath, because in the old rambling Tudor mansion, Wi-Fi was strongest at this desk. Not that a good signal was helping her at the moment. Her Hotmail account was full of unread messages, because, with iMessage on her phone and her Twitter, Instagram, and FB accounts, there was no reason to sign into it very often.

Is this okay with you, Jenna? For him to stay here?" "Yeah," I said. "It's good. You have no idea what it takes for him to ask for help." I spent all evening in Alan's office, reading at his desk and keeping Cameron company. Mostly he slept, snoring lightly and once in a while murmuring unintelligible something into his pillow. I turned my chair so that I could look at him whenever I wanted, at his face or at the bare foot that stuck out from under the covers, or at his arm dangling off the side of the sofa bed. Around eleven, when I was ready for bed, Cameron woke up. I brought him broth and crackers. "Hi," I said. "Have you been here all this time?" "Most of it." Alan's beige pajamas looked small and uncomfortable on Cameron. "You don't have to," he said. "I can take care of myself." He reached for the broth. I watched him slurp straight from his bowl, everything about him becoming younger and more boyish by the second-rosy lips on the white rim of the bowl, wrists without enough pajama sleeve to cover them, cowlick hair and sleepy eyes. "I know you can. But you don't have to." "Well..." He finally looked at me. "Thanks.

I’ve sprained it.” “Oh no! Let me see.” The receptionist jumped up from behind her desk. As she bent over Bess’s ankle, she didn’t notice Bess wink at Nancy. “If I could just get some ice,” Bess said, with a weak smile that looked totally convincing. The receptionist nodded. “Of course. We’ve got ice in our break area at the back of the office,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” Great! thought Nancy. Now, if I can just sneak into Bruce’s office . . . “I’ll use my cell phone to call the doctor,” she fibbed. She pulled her cell phone from her backpack. As the receptionist helped Bess down the hall, Nancy slipped quietly into the office. Quick, she thought. Shoving the phone back in her pack, she closed the door behind her and inspected the room. There’s not much time. She saw a candy-filled bowl on the desk. Each candy had a bright red wrapper marked with a distinctive and familiar white zigzag. That clinches it, Nancy thought. Bruce had to be the person she and Bess had chased the night before. Still, she knew she had to find more concrete proof linking him to the vandalism. She set her pack on the floor next to the desk and

She gave a little sob deep in her throat. 'Call it a prophecy, call it a prediction, call it fate - call it what you will. I fought against it hard enough, God knows. But the evidence of my own eyes, my own ears, my own senses, is too much for me. And the time's too short now. I'm afraid to take a chance. I haven't got the nerve to bluff it out, to sit pat. You don't gamble with a human life. Today's the 13th, isn't it? It's too close to the 14th; there isn't time-margin enough left now to be skeptical, to keep it to myself any longer. Day by day I've watched him cross off the date on his desk-calendar, drawing nearer to death. There are only two leaves left now, and I want help! Because on the 14th - at the exact stroke of midnight, as the 15th is beginning -' She covered her face with both arms and shook silently. 'Yes?' urged McManus. 'Yes?' 'He's become convinced - oh, and almost I have too - that at exactly midnight on the 14th he's to die. Not just die but meet his death in full vigor and health, a death rushing down to him from the stars he was born under - rushing down even before he existed at all. A death inexorable, inescapable. A death horrid and violent, inconceivable here in this part of the world where we live.' She took a deep, shuddering breath, whispered the rest of it. 'Death at the jaws of a lion.' ("Speak To Me Of Death")

KA: What is your basic process working with a writer? LB: I read a manuscript very quickly first, then I sit down the second time and start reading very carefully and do the detail work, the minute hammering on every page. At this point, I know where the story goes so I’m looking for holes. I’m looking for anything that doesn’t add up. The best way to edit is to live entirely in the world as much as you can. Before I had a child I would edit ten hours on Friday ten hours on Saturday and ten hours on Sunday (obviously I had no hobbies or any nee to go outdoors). You knew everything about the book. You were in tune with every character. You have the voice in your head. Then the author gets a hugely marked up manuscript with all these little scribbles. I’m asking them every question that occurs to me. I give them as much time as they want to sit and digest it. Again, this is one of the reasons I like working far in advance. I have time with the manuscript and they have time with the manuscript. I’m happy to let them work in peace and quiet. Then we go back and forth as long as is helpful to them. They do the revision and it lands on my desk again. I read it again beginning to end. I assume it doesn’t need a line edit at that point, although I tend to read with a pencil in my hand. There could be one big thing still sticking in your craw that didn’t get fixed, so you just roll up your sleeves…

Lincoln’s liberal use of his pardoning power created the greatest tension between the two men (Lincoln and Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War). Stanton felt compelled to protect military discipline by exacting proper punishment for desertions or derelictions of duty, while Lincoln looked for any “good excuse for saving a man’s life.” When he found one, he said, “I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.” Stanton would not allow himself such leniency. A clerk recalled finding Stanton one night in his office, “the mother, wife, and children of a soldier who had been condemned to be shot as a deserter, on their knees before him pleading for the life of their loved one. He listened standing, in cold and austere silence, and at the end of their heart-breaking sobs and prayers answered briefly that the man must die. The crushed and despairing little family left and Mr. Stanton turned, apparently unmoved, and walked into his private room.” The clerk thought Stanton an unfeeling tyrant, until he discovered him moments later, “leaning over a desk, his face buried in his hands and his heavy frame shaking with sobs. ‘God help me to do my duty; God help me to do my duty!’ he was repeating in a low wail of anguish.” On such occasions, when Stanton felt he could not afford to set a precedent, he must have been secretly relieved that the president had the ultimate authority.

There’s an old phrase,” Matthew says. “Knowledge is power. Power to do evil, like Jeanine…or power to do good, like what we’re doing. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.” “I guess I grew up suspicious of both. Power and knowledge,” I say. “To the Abnegation, power should only be given to people who don’t want it.” “There’s something to that,” Matthew says. “But maybe it’s time to grow out of that suspicion.” He reaches under the desk and takes out a book. It is thick, with a worn cover and frayed edges. On it is printed HUMAN BIOLOGY. “It’s a little rudimentary, but this book helped to teach me that it is to be human,” he says. “To be such a complicated, mysterious piece of biological machinery, and more amazing still, to have the capacity to analyze that machinery! That is a special thing, unprecedented in all of evolutionary history. Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human.” He hands me the book and turns back to the computer. I look down at the worn cover and run my fingers along the edge of the pages. He makes the acquisition of knowledge feel like a secret, beautiful thing, and an ancient thing. I feel like, if I read this book, I can reach backward through all the generations of humanity to the very first one, whenever it was--that I can participate in something many times larger and older than myself. “Thank you,” I say, and it’s not for the book. It’s for giving something back to me, something I lost before I was able to really have it.

I say, it sounds like some dangerous psychotic killer wrote this, and this buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic. My boss just looks at me. The guy, I say, is probably at home every night with a little rattail file, filing a cross into the tip of every one of his rounds. This way, when he shows up to work one morning and pumps a round into his nagging, ineffectual, petty, whining, butt-sucking, candy-ass boss, that one round will split along the filed grooves and spread open the way a dumdum bullet flowers inside you to blow a bushel load of your stinking guts out through your spine. Picture your gut chakra opening in a slow-motion explosion of sausage-casing small intestine. My boss takes the paper out from under my nose. Go ahead, I say, read some more. No really, I say, it sounds fascinating. The work of a totally diseased mind. And I smile. The little butthole-looking edges of the hole in my cheek are the same blue-black as a dog’s gums. The skin stretched tight across the swelling around my eyes feels varnished. My boss just looks at me. Let me help you, I say. I say, the fourth rule of fight club is one fight at a time. My boss looks at the rules and then looks at me. I say, the fifth rule is no shoes, no shirts in the fight. My boss looks at the rules and looks at me. Maybe, I say, this totally diseased fuck would use an Eagle Apache carbine because an Apache takes a thirty-shot mag and only weighs nine pounds. The Armalite only takes a five-round magazine. With thirty shots, our totally fucked hero could go the length of mahogany row and take out every vice-president with a cartridge left over for each director. Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth. I used to be such a nice person. I just look at my boss. My boss has blue, blue, pale cornflower blue eyes. The J and R 68 semiautomatic carbine also takes a thirty-shot mag, and it only weighs seven pounds. My boss just looks at me. It’s scary, I say. This is probably somebody he’s known for years. Probably this guy knows all about him, where he lives, and where his wife works and his kids go to school. This is exhausting, and all of a sudden very, very boring. And why does Tyler need ten copies of the fight club rules? What I don’t have to say is I know about the leather interiors that cause birth defects. I know about the counterfeit brake linings that looked good enough to pass the purchasing agent, but fail after two thousand miles. I know about the air-conditioning rheostat that gets so hot it sets fire to the maps in your glove compartment. I know how many people burn alive because of fuel-injector flashback. I’ve seen people’s legs cut off at the knee when turbochargers start exploding and send their vanes through the firewall and into the passenger compartment. I’ve been out in the field and seen the burned-up cars and seen the reports where CAUSE OF FAILURE is recorded as "unknown.” No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. The edge must slice his thumb because his hand flies to his mouth, and he’s sucking hard, eyes wide open. I crumble the paper into a ball and toss it into the trash can next to my desk. Maybe, I say, you shouldn’t be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up.

She gives just enough hints about him to make you wonder why he became so villainous. And if he dies, I’ll never learnt the answer.” Oliver eyes her closely. “Perhaps he was born villainous.” “No one is born villainous.” “Oh?” he said with raised eyebrow. “So we’re all born good?” “Neither. We start as animals, with an animal’s needs and desires. It takes parents and teachers and other good examples to show us how to restrain those needs and desires, when necessary, for the greater good. But it’s still our choice whether to heed that education or to do as we please.” “For a woman who loves murder and mayhem, you’re quite the philosopher.” “I like to understand how things work. Why people behave as they do.” He digested that for a moment. “I happen to think that some of us, like Rockton, are born with a wicked bent.” She chose her words carefully. “That certainly provides Rockton with a convenient excuse for his behavior.” His features turned stony. “What do you mean?” “Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all-one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral. By claiming to be born wicked, Rockton ensures that he doesn’t have to struggle to be god. He can just protest that he can’t help himself.” “Perhaps he can’t,” he clipped out. “Or maybe he’s simply unwilling to fight his impulses. And I want to know the reason for that. That’s why I keep reading Minerva’s books.” Did Oliver actually believe he’d been born irredeemably wicked? How tragic! It lent a hopelessness to his life that helped to explain his mindless pursuit of pleasure. “I can tell you the reason for Rockton’s villainy.” Oliver rose to round the desk. Propping his hip on the edge near her, he reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. A sweet shudder swept over her. Why must he have this effect on her? It simply wasn’t fair. “Oh?” she managed. “Rockton knows he can’t have everything he wants,” he said hoarsely, his hand drifting to her cheek. “He can’t have the heroine, for example. She would never tolerate his…wicked impulses. Yet he still wants her. And his wanting consumes him.” Her breath lodged in her throat. It had been days since he’d touched her, and she hadn’t forgotten what it was like for one minute. To have him this near, saying such things… She fought for control over her volatile emotions. “His wanting consumes him precisely because he can’t have her. If he thought he could, he wouldn’t want her after all.” “Not true.” His voice deepening, he stroked the line of her jaw with a tenderness that roused an ache in her chest. “Even Rockton recognizes when a woman is unlike any other. Her very goodness in the face of his villainy bewitches him. He thinks if he can just possess that goodness, then the dark cloud lying on his soul will lift, and he’ll have something other than villainy to sustain him.” “Then he’s mistaken.” Her pulse trebled as his finger swept the hollow of her throat. “The only person who can lift the dark cloud on his soul is himself.” He paused in his caress. “So he’s doomed, then?” “No!” Her gaze flew to his. “No one is doomed, and certainly not Rockton. There’s still hope for him. There is always hope.” His eyes burned with a feverish light, and before she could look away, he bent to kiss her. It was soft, tender…delicious. Someone moaned, she wasn’t sure who. All she knew was that his mouth was on hers again, molding it, tasting it, making her hungry in the way that only he seemed able to do. “Maria…” he breathed. Seizing her by the arms, he drew her up into his embrace. “My God, I’ve thought of nothing but you since that day in the carriage.

Come on,” I hooked my arm through Aphrodite’s and started to pull her to the Street Cats tent. “You haven’t been good enough to watch.” Before Aphrodite could argue, we were at the Street Cats booth, facing a beaming Sister Mary Angela. “Oh, good, Zoey and Aphrodite. I need the both of you.” The nun made a gracious gesture to the young family standing beside one of the kitten cages. “This is the Cronley family. They have decided to adopt both of the calico kittens. It’s so lovely that the two of them have found their forever homes together—they are unusually close, even for littermates.” “That’s great,” I said. “I’ll start on their paperwork.” “I’ll help you. Two cats—two sets of paperwork,” Aphrodite said. “We came with a note from our veterinarian,” the mom said. “I just knew we’d find our kitten tonight.” “Even though we didn’t expect to find two of them,” her husband added. He squeezed his wife’s shoulder and smiled down at her with obvious affection. “Well, we didn’t expect the twins, either,” his wife said, glancing over at the two girls who were still looking in the kitten cage and giggling at the fluffy calicos that would be joining their family. “That surprise turned out great, which is why I think the two kittens will be perfect as well,” said the dad. Like seeing Lenobia and Travis together—this family made my heart feel good. I had started to move to the makeshift desk with Aphrodite when one of the little girls asked, “Hey mommy, what are those black things?” Something in the child’s voice had me pausing, changing direction, and heading to the kitten cage. When I got there I instantly knew why. Within the cage the two calico kittens were hissing and batting at several large, black spiders. “Oh, yuck!” the mom said. “Looks like your school might have a spider problem.” “I know a good exterminator if you need a recommendation,” the dad said. “We’re gonna need a shit ton more than a good exterminator,” Aphrodite whispered as we stared into the kitten cage. “Yeah, uh, well, we don’t usually have bug issues here,” I babbled as disgust shivered up my back. “Eesh, Daddy! There are lots more of them.” The little blond girl was pointing at the back of the cage. It was so completely covered with spiders that it seemed to be alive with their seething movements. “Oh, my goodness!” Sister Mary Angela looked pale as she stared at the spiders that appeared to be multiplying. “Those things weren’t there moments ago.” “Sister, why don’t you take this nice family into the tent and get their paperwork started,” I said quickly, meeting the nun’s sharp gaze with my own steady one. “And send Damien out here to me. I can use his help to take care of this silly spider problem.” “Yes, yes, of course.” The nun didn’t hesitate. “Get Shaunee, Shaylin, and Stevie Rae,” I told Aphrodite, keeping my voice low. “You’re going to cast a circle in front of all of these

The next school day, I went very early to school to put the letter on Lupe’s desk. I also had something special for Jason—but it wasn’t the letter I wrote him. It was something else I had picked up recently from another Chinese immigrant. When I was helping this uncle with his luggage, I had pulled too hard and got a blister on my hand. The man said he had just the thing, and gave me a little vial of Chinese medicine. It felt minty and cool on my finger, but when I reached up to tuck my bangs behind my ear, my minty finger got a little too close to my eye. I was crying in seconds. So after I set Lupe’s letter down on her desk, I practically soaked Jason’s pencils with the same stuff that had made me cry. Let’s see him twirl these suckers now! Jason did not notice the gleam on his pencils when he sat down later that morning. He was too busy bragging about Las Vegas and all the great food he ate and the luxurious suite they stayed in. “They had a pool with three pool slides! There was even a restaurant right smack in the—” “When are you going to give me my pencil back?” I asked. I wanted to cut to the chase. I couldn’t care less about his fancy pools, considering I stared at one all day. “You mean my pencil?” He shrugged. “I gave it to my dog, Wealthy. It’s probably all chewed up by now.” He would give it to his dog. And he would have a dog named Wealthy. Jason smirked, picked up one of his pencils and started twirling. He twirled it a little too close to his face and just as I predicted, the strong minty smell made his eyes water. He put the pencil down and began rubbing his eyes furiously with his menthol fingers. Big mistake. “Oh my God, Jason’s crying!” one of my classmates exclaimed. “No, I’m not!” Jason insisted, blinking furiously. But it was too late. Everyone ran over and huddled next to Jason. It wasn’t every day a kid in fifth grade started bawling—fourth grade maybe, but not fifth grade. We watched with wide eyes as Jason cried and cried. Sunlight flooded in through the tall glass windows, and Jason’s tears glistened in the warm peach glow. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. The only thing that could make that day more beautiful was the chance of Lupe forgiving me.

The distinction between mass and weight is always a little tricky, since they are exactly proportional to each other. Monteith made it easy. Out in space, you can lift a barbell off the floor of the shuttle much more easily than you can on Earth, because its attraction to Earth is diminished at that distance. But you can’t roll it on the floor any faster than you can on Earth, because the mass does not change with distance from Earth. The barbell’s weight is due to a certain attraction to Earth (the nearest significantly large body), but mass is a resistance to acceleration that belongs to the barbell in itself, independently of the barbell’s location, and regardless of the direction in which you attempt to accelerate it. “Weight is attraction; mass is shove resistance”, he would say. (I could rattle off a bunch of those pithy one-liners that have helped me through my subsequent courses in physics.) When a fellow student of mine said he was still confused about the difference, Monteith’s eyes bulged as he strode over to my neighbor’s desk. “Would you rather lift my car or push it if you had to do one or the other?” “Pushing it is easier.” “Then mass isn’t weight, is it? The mass of my car resists your push. The weight resists your lift.

Three years later he had another opportunity to see the little girl. Helmert had been tearing through the keep, bellowing like a mad bull as he searched for his sister. “Josephine , I swear I’ll rip yer head off when I find ye!” ’Twas eerily similar to Graeme’s first visit. Remembering his first encounter with the tree sprite, Graeme went in search of Josephine. The first place he looked was the auld oak tree, but she was not there. After a careful search out of doors, he went inside. She was not in the larder or the kitchen. It took more than half an hour before he finally located her in her father’s study, hiding under the large desk. Graeme crouched low so he could see her better. It didn’t appear she had grown much in three years, though she had lost the cherubic face. This time she wore a dark green dress and matching slippers. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been quite terrified of her brother. Now, she looked quite angry. “I’ll nae tell, Josephine,” he whispered, offering her a kind smile. A scrunched brow said she didn’t believe him. “Pray tell, what did ye hide this time?” he asked, hoping his amused tone would help lighten the mood. Reluctantly, she finally confessed. “His strop.” Graeme raised a confused brow. “Why would ye hide his strop?” The little girl looked at him as though he were quite daft. “So he will not beat me with it.

Gina flopped back on her cot, arm up over her eyes. “Oh, my God, Molly, what am I going to do? The fact that he came here tonight at all is . . . He’s clearly interested, but that’s probably just because he thinks I’m a total perv.” “Whoa,” Molly said. “Wait. You lost me there.” Gina sat up, a mix of earnestness, horror, and amusement on her pretty face. “I didn’t tell you this, but after I first spoke to Lucy’s sister—we were in the shower tent so no one would see us—I let her leave first and then I waited, like, a minute, thinking we shouldn’t be seen leaving the tent together. And before I go, he came in.” He. “Leslie Pollard?” Molly clarified. Gina nodded. “I freaked out when I saw him coming, and it’s stupid, I know, but I hid. And I should have just waited until I heard the shower go on, but God, maybe he wouldn’t have pulled the curtain, because he obviously thought he was in there alone . . .” Molly started to laugh. “Oh my.” “Yeah,” Gina said. “Oh my. So I decide to run for it, only he’s not in one of the changing booths, he’s over by the bench, you know?” Molly nodded. The bench in the main part of the room. “In only his underwear,” Gina finished, with a roll of her eyes. “Oh, my God.” “Really? Molly asked. Apparently Jones was taking his change of identity very seriously. He hated wearing underwear of any kind, but obviously he thought it wouldn’t be in character for Leslie Pollard to go commando. “Boxers or briefs?” Gina gave her a look, but she was starting to laugh now, too, thank goodness. “Briefs. Very brief briefs.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, my God, Molly, he was . . . I think he showers at noon because he knows no one else will be in there, so he can, you know, have an intimate visit with Mr. Hand.” Oh, dear. “And now I know, and he knows I know, and he also probably thinks I lurk in the men’s shower,” Gina continued. “And the fact that he actually came to tea tonight, instead of hiding from me, in his tent, forever, means . . . something awful, don’t you think? Did I mention he has, like, an incredible body?” Molly shook her head. Oh dear. “No.” “Yes,” Gina said just a little too grimly, considering the topic. “Who would’ve guessed that underneath those awful shirts he’s a total god? And maybe that’s what’s freaking out the most.” “You mean because . . . you’re attracted to him?” Molly asked. “No!” Gina said. “God! Because I’m not. I felt nothing. I’m standing there and he’s . . . You know how I said he reminds me of Hugh Grant?” Molly nodded, too relieved to speak. “Well, I got the wrong Hugh. This guy is built like Hugh Jackman. And beneath the hats and sunblock and glasses, he’s actually got cheekbones and a jaw line, too. I’m talking total hottie. And, yes, I can definitely appreciate that on one level, but . . .” She glanced over at the desk, at her digital camera. She’d gotten it out of her trunk earlier today. Which, Molly had learned, meant that she’d spent more time this afternoon looking at her saved pictures. Which included at least a few of Max. Molly’s relief over not having to deal with the complications of Gina having a crush on Leslie felt a whole lot less good. She wished someone would just go ahead and steal Gina’s camera already. Maybe that would help her move on.

Hello,” she says. “My name is Amanda Ritter. In this file I will tell you only what you need to know. I am the leader of an organization fighting for justice and peace. This fight has become increasingly more important--and consequently, nearly impossible--in the past few decades. That is because of this.” Images flash across the wall, almost too fast for me to see. A man on his knees with a gun pressed to his forehead. The woman pointing it at him, her face emotionless. From a distance, a small person hanging by the neck from a telephone pole. A hole in the ground the size of a house, full of bodies. And there are other images too, but they move faster, so I get only impressions of blood and bone and death and cruelty, empty faces, soulless eyes, terrified eyes. Just when I have had enough, when I feel like I am going to scream if I see any more, the woman reappears on the screen, behind her desk. “You do not remember any of that,” she says. “But if you are thinking these are the actions of a terrorist group or a tyrannical government regime, you are only partially correct. Half of the people in those pictures, committing those terrible acts, were your neighbors. Your relatives. Your coworkers. The battle we are fighting is not against a particular group. It is against human nature itself--or at least what it has become.” This is what Jeanine was willing to enslave minds and murder people for--to keep us all from knowing. To keep us all ignorant and safe and inside the fence. There is a part of me that understands. “That is why you are so important,” Amanda says. “Our struggle against violence and cruelty is only treating the symptoms of a disease, not curing it. You are the cure. “In order to keep you safe, we devised a way for you to be separated from us. From our water supply. From our technology. From our societal structure. We have formed your society in a particular way in the hope that you will rediscover the moral sense most of us have lost. Over time, we hope that you will begin to change as most of us cannot. “The reason I am leaving this footage for you is so that you will know when it’s time to help us. You will know that it is time when there are many among you whose minds appear to be more flexible than the others. The name you should give those people is Divergent. Once they become abundant among you, your leaders should give the command for Amity to unlock the gate forever, so that you may emerge from your isolation.” And that is what my parents wanted to do: to take what we had learned and use it to help others. Abnegation to the end. “The information in this video is to be restricted to those in government only,” Amanda says. “You are to be a clean slate. But do not forget us.” She smiles a little. “I am about to join your number,” she says. “Like the rest of you, I will voluntarily forget my name, my family, and my home. I will take on a new identity, with false memories and a false history. But so that you know the information I have provided you with is accurate, I will tell you the name I am about to take as my own.” Her smile broadens, and for a moment, I feel that I recognize her. “My name will be Edith Prior,” she says. “And there is much I am happy to forget.” Prior. The video stops. The projector glows blue against the wall. I clutch Tobias’s hand, and there is a moment of silence like a withheld breath. Then the shouting begins.

And for the four remaining days - the ninety-six remaining hours - we mapped out a future away from everything we knew. When the walls of the map were breached, we gave one another courage to build them again. And we imagined our home an old stone barn filled with junk and wine and paintings, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and bees. I remember our final day in the villa. We were supposed to be going that evening, taking the sleeper back to England. I was on edge, a mix of nerves and excitement, looking out to see if he made the slightest move toward leaving, but he didn’t. Toiletries remained on the bathroom shelves, clothes stayed scattered across the floor. We went to the beach as usual, lay side by side in our usual spot. The heat was intense and we said little, certainly nothing of our plans to move up to Provence, to the lavender and light. To the fields of sunflowers. I looked at my watch. We were almost there. It was happening. I kept saying to myself, he’s going to do it. I left him on the bed dozing, and went out to the shop to get water and peaches. I walked the streets as if they were my new home. Bonjour to everyone, me walking barefoot, oh so confident, free. And I imagined how we’d go out later to eat, and we’d celebrate at our bar. And I’d phone Mabel and Mabel would say, I understand. I raced back to the villa, ran up the stairs and died. Our rucksacks were open on the bed, our shoes already packed away inside. I watched him from the door. He was silent, his eyes red. He folded his clothes meticulously, dirty washing in separate bags. I wanted to howl. I wanted to put my arms around him, hold him there until the train had left the station. I’ve got peaches and water for the journey, I said. Thank you, he said. You think of everything. Because I love you, I said. He didn’t look at me. The change was happening too quickly. Is there a taxi coming? My voice was weak, breaking. Madame Cournier’s taking us. I went to open the window, the scent of tuberose strong. I lit a cigarette and looked at the sky. An airplane cast out a vivid orange wake that ripped across the violet wash. And I remember thinking, how cruel it was that our plans were out there somewhere. Another version of our future, out there somewhere, in perpetual orbit. The bottle of pastis? he said. I smiled at him. You take it, I said. We lay in our bunks as the sleeper rattled north and retraced the journey of ten days before. The cabin was dark, an occasional light from the corridor bled under the door. The room was hot and airless, smelled of sweat. In the darkness, he dropped his hand down to me and waited. I couldn’t help myself, I reached up and held it. Noticed my fingertips were numb. We’ll be OK, I remember thinking. Whatever we are, we’ll be OK. We didn’t see each other for a while back in Oxford. We both suffered, I know we did, but differently. And sometimes, when the day loomed gray, I’d sit at my desk and remember the heat of that summer. I’d remember the smells of tuberose that were carried by the wind, and the smell of octopus cooking on the stinking griddles. I’d remember the sound of our laughter and the sound of a doughnut seller, and I’d remember the red canvas shoes I lost in the sea, and the taste of pastis and the taste of his skin, and a sky so blue it would defy anything else to be blue again. And I’d remember my love for a man that almost made everything possible./

My morning schedule saw me first in Cannan’s office, conferring with my advisor, but our meeting was interrupted within minutes by Narian, who entered without knocking and whose eyes were colder than I had seen them in a long time. “I thought you intended to control them,” he stated, walking toward the captain’s desk and standing directly beside the chair in which I sat.” He slammed a lengthy piece of parchment down on the wood surface, an unusual amount of tension in his movements. I glanced toward the open door and caught sight of Rava. She stood with one hand resting against the frame, her calculating eyes evaluating the scene while she awaited orders. Cannan’s gaze went to the parchment, but he did not reach for it, scanning its contents from a distance. Then he looked at Narian, unruffled. “I can think of a dozen or more men capable of this.” “But you know who is responsible.” Cannan sat back, assessing his opposition. “I don’t know with certainty any more than you do. In the absence of definitive proof of guilt on behalf of my son and his friends, I suggest you and your fellows develop a sense of humor.” Then the captain’s tone changed, becoming more forbidding. “I can prevent an uprising, Narian. This, you’ll have to get used to.” Not wanting to be in the dark, I snatched up the parchment in question. My mouth opened in shock and dismay as I silently read its contents, the men waiting for me to finish. On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.