Hollow Kingdom Quotes

One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.

Suppose... suppose we have only dreamed and made up these things like sun, sky, stars, and moon, and Aslan himself. In that case, it seems to me that the made-up things are a good deal better than the real ones. And if this black pits of a kingdom is the best you can make, then it's a poor world. And we four can make a dream world to lick your real one hollow.

And everyone on earth knows if you have the respect of a cat it means your soul is worth being around.

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Em, I am trying to have an important conversation!" shouted Seylin. "I will not change into a cat!

Don't fret. We'll just have to find something else you're good at besides killing people.

Kate had never in her life seen such frightful deformities, and the goblins had never seen such a hideous dress.

Forks are absurd, he scoffed. They insult your food. They make it think you're killing it twice.

Kate felt very offended. 'I am not an elf,' she insisted. 'I'm an Englishwoman!

Lively, intelligent, and quite immature, [Emily] usually burst out with exactly the comment that summed up the situation beautifully and therefore could never in politeness be said.

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, hollow be thy promises and shallow be thy shame. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On a scale from on to ten, our Lord is totally eleven. Give us this day our daily bread, toasted close to dawn, and forgive us our trespasses as we shoot those who trespass on our lawn, and lead us not into temptation, such as pot or porno, but deliver us from evil (if not delivery, then DiGiorno).

Big Jim’s eyeball fell out. Like, fell the fuck out of his head. It rolled onto the grass, and to be honest, Big Jim and I were both taken aback.

The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

Trust it turned out, was a very beautiful and fragile thing with a taste like wild raspberries and experienced only by the very brave.

Watching the sunrise.....what an act of beauty, of unwavering faith, something to look forward to each and every day.

The fire that hollows us out is what allows us to be filled with strength and power where before there was none.

Where I come from we call what you’re feeling The Black Tide. It will pass. Tides, by their nature, come and go.

Her name translated as "Survivor," but she told me she didn't like it much. I asked her why and she said because she is a female and all females are survivors so it was massively redundant.

I cannot recommend this to you enough: find something that you believe in, right down deep in the depths of your silvery plumage, and then throw your heart at it, blood and valves and veins and all. Because I did this, the world, though brambled and frothing at the mouth, looked more vibrant; blues were bluer, and even the fetid puddles that collected under rusting cars tasted as sweet as summer wine.

A creature can be heartbreakingly powerful and loving while also being a destroyer of worlds.

Bald eagles are majestic as fuck.

Change is inevitable, dear crow. We must adapt. You cannot stop the tide, S.T. You must be more like the log that bobs along its surface.

You know so much, Onida." "I have nine brains—which never stop growing—three hearts, and I can regenerate my arms; but mostly, it's because I'm female." Female. Well, shit. Admittedly, I had limited knowledge of them, but they had always seemed omniscient and formidable to me.

And though Nature is tough, she is always conspiring for your success, encouraging you to evolve. You can even hear her if you listen carefully.

When you have the power to stand up to oppression, you must.

Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o’clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Big cities comforted me: the cover, the chaos, the hollow sympathy of the architecture, the Tube lines snaking underground. London could swallow you up, in a good way. There were times when I'd been broken and being subsumed into a city had made me feel part of a whole again.

Perhaps she had learned already those lessons in life that make smiling difficult.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom

So there we were. A rejected crow with an identity crisis partnering a bloodhound with the IQ of boiled pudding. We were perhaps the most pathetic excuse for an attempted murder on the face of the earth.

Every singe one of us, from amoeba to blue whale to the tenacious bloom that dares to dream of tomorrow, have their own destiny-fulfilling journey as long as their minds and hearts are open.

I’m not sure why everyone hates opossums so much; they may look like someone shaved the buttocks of a poodle and taught it to talk through it’s asshole, but they are generally pretty likable critters.

And we protect The Pack from the hunters, we will fall in love with each moment, singing to the moon that has loved us since we were stars.

We are more powerful when we work together because we look out for one another by being one. That is the code of murder.

All the winged, even fungus gnats, know that you cannot fly if you're carrying too much weight with you. It's a well-known adage, actually: "The light of heart is free to fly.

Big Jim was not a crow, but he knew about the loyalty of murder, which makes him as much crow as any I’d met. “Crows before hoes,” said Big Jim, pretending he wasn’t drowning as I sat on his shoulder and collected his tears.

I cannot recommend this to you enough: find something that you believe in, right down deep in the depths of your silvery plumage, and then throw your heart at it, blood and valves and veins and all.

I explained birthday cake as a spongy mattress of awesome with hidden rivers of delicious goo to celebrate having stayed alive a whole year.

When you love someone with your soul, they never really leave you; they are hemmed into your heart.

Trees are normally very general and all-inclusive with their wisdom pearls. When a tree decides to talk to you, it's a very, very big deal, as if the world stops, as if you are scooped up and held in a snow globe, weightless and womb-like. I felt their vibrations in my feathers, in the flutter of my little black heart.

What remains once the war is won? Fame. Songs. A kingdom of corpses. His name too heavy in my mouth. What do we become in death? Shadows. Longing. Regret, regret, regret. What do we keep once we are ghosts? The blood under my fingernails. His crooked teeth. Searching for happiness in the threads of his hands. A love that burned alive. A love that is still bursting in my hollow chest. A love that was never enough. What do you do when you’re alone in the darkness? Wait for him, I’ll wait forever if I must. Were you ever able to name one hero who was happy? No.

Penguins, it turns out, are pretty fucking delightful.

I was experiencing acute déjà poo—the feeling that I’d heard this crap before.

Butterflies live short lives because they have mastered the art of living. They serve to pass it on with luminous bursts of joy, bright flickers from the other side.

The light of heart is free to fly.

Trust, it turned out, was a very beautiful and fragile thing with a taste like wild raspberries and experienced only by the very brave.

Grief can slam into you like a well-waxed window. But it means the ones you love aren’t lost or forgotten. They’ve made a home in your heart, which is the most permanent place of all.

Her name translated as “Survivor,” but she told me she didn’t like it much. I asked her why and she said because she is a female and all females are survivors so it was massively redundant.

Even when I laugh and smile and act completely normal, I can still sense the void inside. The terrifying hollowness. It echoes through my empty chest like an old rusty bell. It hurts. It really fucking hurts. The worst part is that I can’t even talk about it to anyone. They’d think I’m broken beyond repair.

I had a black belt in running away from things and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single crow in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a Cheeto®.

tater tots are mood-enhancing potato pillows,

Listen; life is worth a fight. Expectation must be shed like winter leaves. Even in death, there is wondrous beauty. And death is not The End.

Things couldn’t get any worse. But then I realized that was a particularly idiotic thing to suggest, because they suddenly did get worse,

In a different world, in a different life, we'd be together," I whisper. "No kingdoms to rule, no people to save, just you and me and a simple life loving each other." "But we're in this world. In this life." He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and it feels like goodbye. "So I'll have to save that for my dreams.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star.

There were, sadly, some things that were just impossible to explain, like the plot of Inception and CrossFit.

Forgiveness is the ultimate act of strength.

Stories suture up our wounds, stitch us back together. They keep our loved ones alive.

Family doesn’t have to look like you; they can have feathers and scales and scutes. What matters is that you’re loved for who you are in your heart. We survive when we are seen.

Everything talks, you just have to be willing to listen.

And within some amount of time that I can't be sure of because I still didn't really understand time and none of the clocks worked anymore, I got an answer.

I hated these inky fools, these lentil-brained ass noodles.

What happens to the wolf if his drüskelle is killed?” Matthias was silent for a time. He did not want to think about this. Trass had been the creature of his heart. “They are returned to the wild, but they will never be accepted by any pack.” And what was a wolf without a pack? The isenulf were not meant to live alone. When had the other drüskelle decided Matthias was dead? Had it been Brum who had taken Trass north to the ice? The idea of his wolf left alone, howling for Matthias to come and take him home, carved a hollow ache in his chest. It felt like something had broken there and left an echo, the lonely snap of a branch too heavy with snow.

Crows are harbingers of death and omens, good and bad, according to Big Jim according to Google. Midnight-winged tricksters associated with mystery, the occult, the unknown. The netherworld, wherever it is- Portland? We make people think of the deceased and super angsty poetry. Admittedly we don't help the cause when we happily dine on fish guts in a landfill, buy hey ho.

I realized, wet and defeated in a puddle of mud, that I was surrounded by devastatingly beautiful things. None of it called attention to itself, no preening and crowing here, Everything just was what it was, intricately complex and simply stunning.

And everyone on earth knows that if you have the respect of a cat, it means your soul is one worth being around.

What an extraordinary luxury to cast a shadow.

The woods carry sounds in their slow rhythms, sounds that only a heart can hear.

Never presume to know the journey of another, friend,

There was a ringleader who I honestly couldn't tell from the other ants except that she carried her tiny frame like a gladiator who'd seen cities crumble.

The work was dangerous and made us so tired our bones hurt like old memories.

Sometimes I have the thought that a lot of species are hardwired to refuse to listen to warnings. And that's how they end up extinct.

When MoFos and the furred and feathered worked together it was beautiful and unstoppable. It is what nature intended.

They were tiny words from a tiny bird, but perhaps sometimes all you need is a speck of encouragement, an acorn of belief.

Why do people who leave nothing unchallenged still make de­mands of their own? They live off the fact that gods, fathers, and poets used to exist. The essence of words has been diluted into empty titles. In the animal kingdom, there are parasites that clandestinely hollow out a caterpillar. Eventually, a mere wasp emerges instead of a butterfly. And that is what those people do with their heri­tage, and with language in particular, as counterfeiters...

It’s not real. It’s just a story,” I said to her. I felt her great black-and-white head bob up and down. She filled me with waves of frothy hope as she said, “Dear Crow, it is all just story.

Big Jim used to tell me that "money talks," but this stash was mighty silent. I suspect this is one of those MoFo expressions meant to confuse, like when I wasted an entire afternoon searching the yard for an ax and a body because Big Jim said he's buried the hatchet with his friend Mike.

Her vibrancy had returned, perhaps sparked by a sense of purpose, and Dennis and I got to see her in her full glory, a little dog who resembled a cute soufflé but was fueled by a fiery passion.

For every species there is a calling to evolve, an opportunity for change to ensure survival. If a species misses the calling to evolve, they are destined for extinction. This is the law of the earth.

And yet I felt a tickling cognizance, dewdrops beading in my mind. Perhaps I'd always known, always been aware that there is more to be seen than what is in front of me. Perhaps I'd deliberately chosen not to acknowledge the story a flower tells or the particular vibration of rocks. When the mole spoke of The Mother Trees, I didn't question him because somewhere deep down, below feather and skin and bleached bone, I knew.

Maybe it’s animalness that will make the world right again: the wisdom of elephants, the enthusiasm of canines, the grace of snakes, the mildness of anteaters. Perhaps being human needs some diluting. —Carol Emshwiller

He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. 'You have no idea what I'm feeling now.' He looked at her lips, and the most tortured expression she'd ever seen crossed his face. When Jacks wanted something, it was with an intensity that could break worlds and build kingdoms. That was the energy pouring off him now, as if he wanted to destroy her and make her his queen all at once. And it was oh so tempting to let him. Magic crackled in the sliver of space between them. Golden and electric and alive. It felt like the end of a fairytale, when one kiss has more power than a thousand wars or a hundred spells.

The hills below crouched on all fours under the weight of the rainforest where liana grew and soldier ants marched in formation. Straight ahead they marched, shamelessly single-minded, for soldier ants have no time for dreaming. Almost all of them are women and there is so much to do - the work is literally endless. So many to be born and fed, then found and buried. There is no time for dreaming. The life of their world requires organization so tight and sacrifice so complete there is little need for males and they are seldom produced. When they are needed, it is deliberately done by the queen who surmises, by some four-million-year-old magic she is heiress to, that it is time. So she urges a sperm from the private womb where they were placed when she had her one, first and last copulation. Once in life, this little Amazon trembled in the air waiting for a male to mount her. And when he did, when he joined a cloud of others one evening just before a summer storm, joined colonies from all over the world gathered fro the marriage flight, he knew at last what his wings were for. Frenzied, he flied into the humming cloud to fight gravity and time in order to do, just once, the single thing he was born for. Then he drops dead, having emptied his sperm into his lady-love. Sperm which she keeps in a special place to use at her own discretion when there is need for another dark and singing cloud of ant folk mating in the air. Once the lady has collected the sperm, she too falls to the ground, but unless she breaks her back or neck or is eaten by one of a thousand things, she staggers to her legs and looks for a stone to rub on, cracking and shedding the wings she will never need again. Then she begins her journey searching for a suitable place to build her kingdom. She crawls into the hollow of a tree, examines its walls and corners. She seals herself off from all society and eats her own wing muscles until she bears her eggs. When the first larvae appear, there is nothing to feed them, so she gives them their unhatched sisters until they are old enough and strong enough to hunt and bring their prey back to the kingdom. That is all. Bearing, hunting, eating, fighting, burying. No time for dreaming, although sometimes, late in life, somewhere between the thirtieth and fortieth generation she might get wind of a summer storm one day. The scent of it will invade her palace and she will recall the rush of wind on her belly - the stretch of fresh wings, the blinding anticipation and herself, there, airborne, suspended, open, trusting, frightened, determined, vulnerable - girlish, even, for and entire second and then another and another. She may lift her head then, and point her wands toward the place where the summer storm is entering her palace and in the weariness that ruling queens alone know, she may wonder whether his death was sudden. Or did he languish? And if so, if there was a bit of time left, did he think how mean the world was, or did he fill that space of time thinking of her? But soldier ants do not have time for dreaming. They are women and have much to do. Still it would be hard. So very hard to forget the man who fucked like a star.

Also, my collection is growing. So far I have infiltrated four hundred homes and pillaged every sock I can find. I cannot explain my fascination with these delightful foot blankets, I can only tell you that it pleases me to carry them around while yowling like my fur is on fire.

Addiction to an electronic world caused the downfall of the MoFos. They’d forgotten to connect with each other, to connect with the creatures who missed them and to Nature as She called for them to come home. The crow part of me knew not to dwell on what was, but the MoFo part of me would always carry my best friend in my heart. Because we never give up on anything, especially love, and that’s the very, very best thing about being a MoFo.

Each buoyant husk surrounds a single fist-sized kernel that is hollow except for a nutritious liquid known to health-food enthusiasts as “coconut water.” Whatever branding specialist coined that term cannot be blamed for shying away from the more accurate, technical description: acellular endosperm.

Um, excuse me, but, wait. Uh...uh...are all domestic our allies?" came a frail voice from a bushtit whose name roughly translates as Gary. "During this War, they are all our allies. We will work together," said Kraai. "Not cats though, right?" asked a yellow-breasted western meadowlark. Kraai gave his measured answer: "Not every cat is bad." Mutters of disbelief rose like bubbles. Gary the bushtit, shifting his balance, lifted up his sad twig of a leg stump as a silent rebuttal. "You're right, Gary. Cats can't be trusted. But everything else.

Indeed it is, Kate,’ Marak agreed. ‘It’s time to plan your revenge. Goblins just adore revenge.’ He grinned. ‘Do you have anything in mind?’ Kate was taken aback. ‘Revenge is wrong,’ she told him solemnly. ‘Vengeance belongs to God.’ The goblin put his head to one side and watched her through narrowed eyes. ‘You won’t even give God a little help?’ he asked softly.

I have conducted experiments using techniques that used to be fairly effective—knocking over the French press, unraveling their shoddy knitting, chewing the covers of every book in the library, shitting on pillows, shredding the couch, eating all the Ethernet snakes, and pissing all over bed blanket—but they seem to no longer be concerned. Admittedly, I’m impressed. I respect the negligible number of shits currently being given. Case in point: one of my Mediocre Servants left her arm in the living room, which I believe speaks to their general ineptitude. I played with it momentarily, but found its pungency off-putting and resumed licking my anus.

About how Mother Nature is not kind, but she is balanced. Every single one of us, from amoeba to blue whale to the tenacious bloom that dares to dream of tomorrow, have their own destiny-fulfilling journey as long as their minds and hearts are open. And how we are all connected by a web that looks gossamer but is stronger than a chain-link fence. And though Nature is tough, she is always conspiring for your success, encouraging you to evolve. You can even hear her if you listen carefully.

Elephants command attention. But their size is not what makes the heart skip a beat. It's how they walk with the world's weight on their shoulders, sensitive, noble, their hearts pulsing and as wide open as the great grey leaves that are their ears. MoFos used to say that an elephant never forgets and until this very moment, I hadn't understood what that really meant. An elephant's memories don't reside in organ or skin or bone. They live closer to tree time than we do, and their memories reside in the soul of their species, which dwarfs them in size, is untouchable, and lives on forever to honor every story. They carry stories from generations back, as far as when their ancestors wore fur coats, That is why, when you are close to an elephant, you feel so deeply. If they so choose, they have the ability to hold your sadness so you may safely sit in the lonely seat of loss, still hopeful and full of love. Their great secret is that they know everything is a tide—not a black tide, but the natural breath of life—in and out, in and out, and to be with them is to know this too, And here they were, suddenly lifting the weight of our sadness for us, carrying it in the curl of their trunks. We all sat together in our loss, not dwelling, but remembering. For an elephant never forgets,

When we seek the kingdom, I believe we’re seeking a proper order and placement of things. I believe we’re seeking a table and we’re doing work that gives life. I believe we walk in glory, and it becomes our joy to turn our hearts in the direction of the King, who works not from the castle and not beside but from within. The King is our friend. The King no longer calls us servants.4 We aren’t working in the field away from him. We work in communion. We share in the suffering of his labor, yes, but we share in his joy too.

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.

One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.

Ode to the Beloved’s Hips" Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.

What would have happened? Lol does not probe very deeply into the unknown into which this moment opens. She has no memory, not even an imaginary one, she has not the faintest notion of this unknown. But what she does believe is that she must enter it, that that was what she has to do, that it would always have meant, for her mind as well as her body, both their greatest pain and their greatest joy, so commingled as to be undefinable, a single entity but unnamable for lack of a word. I like to believe--since I love her--that if Lol is silent in daily life, it is because, for a split second, she believed that this word might exist. Since it does not, she remains silent. It would have been an absence-word, a hole-word, whose center would have been hollowed out into a hole, the kind of hole in which all other words would have been buried. It would have been impossible to utter, it would have been made to reverberate. Enormous, endless, an empty gong, it would have held back anyone who wanted to leave, it would have convinced them of the impossible, it would have made them deaf to any other word save that one, in one fell swoop it would have defined the moment and the future themselves. By its absence this word ruins all the others, it contaminates them, it is also the dead dog on the beach at high noon, this hole of flesh. How were other words found? Hand-me-downs from God knows how many love affairs like Lol Stein's, affairs nipped in the bud, trampled upon, and from massacres, oh! you've no idea how many their are, how many blood-stained failures are strewn along the horizon, piled up there, and, among them, this word, which does not exist, is nonetheless there: it awaits you just around the corner of language, it defies you--never having been used--to raise it, to make it arise from its kingdom, which is pierced on every side and through which flows the sea, the sand, the eternity of the ball in the cinema of Lol Stein.

Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—

In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies. These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly. At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat. Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals. The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth. In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them. With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green. One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom. “Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap. “I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look. “Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he. Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder. “You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites. “As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean. “Take me with you,” I said to the fox. “Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said. “Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.” “Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered. “No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.” Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me. Like it or not, she had to take me with her. We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed. “This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler. “Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I. “Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.

Chapter 28 Genghis Cat Gracing Whatever Shithole This Is, Washington, USA You can all relax now, because I am here. What did you think? I’d run for safety at the whim of a fucking parrot with under-eye bags like pinched scrotums? Did you suspect I—a ninja with feather-wand fastness and laser-pointer focus—had the spine of a banana slug? Then you are a shit-toned oink with the senses of a sniveling salamander. Then you don’t know Genghis Cat. I look around and can see that we are surrounded by The Bird Beasts, those crepe-faced, hair ball–brained fuck goblins. I intensely dislike these lumpy whatthefuckareyous who straddle between the Mediocre Servant and animal worlds, trying to be one thing and really not being, like imitation crabmeat in a sushi log that is really just fucking whitefish and WE ALL KNOW IT. “Would you like a little of the crabmeat, Genghis?” my Mediocre Servants seemed to ask with their blobfish lips and stupid faces. “THAT’S FUCKING WHITEFISH, YOU REGURGITATED MOLES!” I’d yowl, and then I’d steal the sushi log and run off and growl very much so they couldn’t have it back, and later I would pee on their night pillows for good measure. I cannot imagine their lives before me. We mustn’t think of those bleak dark ages. But the Beasts are dangerous. I have watched them morph and chew into a house. I have seen them with spider legs and second stomachs and camouflage skins. I have seen them tear the legs off a horse and steal flight from those with feathers. Orange and I have lost family to their fuckish appetites. But they are still fakish faking beasts and I’m fucking Genghis Cat. They are imitation crab and Genghis is filet mignon Fancy Feast, bitch. Probably I should come clean here and tell you that I’m immortal. I always suspected it but can confirm it now that I have surpassed the allocated nine lives. I’m somewhere around life 884, give or take seventy-eight. Some mousers have called me a god, but I insist on modesty. I also don’t deny it. I might be a god. It seems to fit. It feels right. A stealthy, striped god with an exotically spotted tummy—it seems certain, doesn’t it to you? I’m 186 percent sure at this point. Orange insists we stay away from the Beasts all the time, but I only let Orange think he’s in charge. Orange is incredibly sensitive, despite being the size of a Winnebago. He hand-raised each of my kittens and has terrible nightmares, and I have to knead my paws on him to calm him down. Orange and I have a deal. I will kill anything that comes to harm Orange and Orange will continue to be the reason I purr.