Huge Crush Quotes

The newcomer stood well over six feet, as tall as any Warden. His hair was dark, the color of obsidian, and it reflected blue in the dim light. Lazy locks slipped over his forehead and curled just below his ears. Brows arched over golden eyes and his cheekbones were broad and high. He was attractive. Very attractive. Mind-bendingly beautiful, actually, but the sardonic twist to his full lips chilled his beauty. The black T-shirt stretched across his chest and flat stomach. A huge tattoo of a snake curled around his forearm, the tail disappearing under his sleeve and the diamond-shaped head rested on the top of his hand. He looked my age. Total crush material—if it wasn’t for the fact that he had no soul.

Even if your ambitions are huge, start slow, start small, build gradually, build smart.

I start imagining how the conversation will go, where he calls you, and you answer, and he’s silent except for breathing and a few grunts, and you think you have some creeper on the line, hang up on him, and he crushes the phone in his huge, heartbroken hand and never leaves his cabin again.” Ellie

It is a crushing moment when you realize that your life has either been a series of huge mistakes, or worse; it hasn’t.

The local natives were particularly curious to know why the English required such huge quantities of pepper and there was much scratching of heads until it was finally agreed that English houses were so cold that the walls were plastered with crushed pepper in order to produce heat.

When I look down into this fucked-out cunt of a whore I feel the whole world beneath me, a world tottering and crumbling, a world used up and polished like a leper's skull. If there were a man who dared to say all that he thought of this world there would not be left him a square foot of ground to stand on. When a man appears the world bears down on him and breaks his back. There are always too many rotten pillars left standing, too much festering humanity for man to bloom. The superstructure is a lie and the foundation is a huge quaking fear. If at intervals of centuries there does appear a man with a desperate, hungry look in his eye, a man that would turn the world upside down in order to create a new race, the love that he brings to the world is turned to bile and he becomes a scourge. If now and then we encounter pages that explode, pages that wound and sear, that wring groans and tears and curses, know that they come from a man with his back up, a man whose only defenses left are his words and his words are always stronger than the lying, crushing weight of the world, stronger than all the racks and wheels which the cowardly invent to crush out the miracle of personality. If any man ever dared to translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would go to smash, that it would be blown to smithereens and no god, no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world.

Do not let anger become a huge part of your life nor let it become your life.

A huge screech sounds from several feet away that startles us apart. “AHHHHHH! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!” Because I’d know that screech anywhere, I shoot Jaxon a rueful smile and take a couple of steps back, right before my cousin, Macy, slams straight into my side.

I know this doesn't exactly make me unique, but I love the internet. I love it. I think the way I feel about the internet is the way some people feel about the ocean. It's so huge and unknowable, but also totally predictable. You type a line of symbols and click enter, and everything you want to happen, happens. Not like real life, where all the wanting in the world can't make something exist

Excuse me, Mr. Yeti, I know we locked you up in a cage and you're pissed as hell, but do you think you could slap the ham for me? And when you cum, could you aim for this little tiny cup that you could easily crush with your huge Yeti hands...

we all face choices in life. Some are small,insignificant choices like what to wear to the prom or what to say to your crush when you see him walking down the hall. Those choices may or may not have long-term effects on our lives. You never know. Then there are choices that are so huge, so important,you know you are altering the path of your life as you make them.

Archer's necklace thing may have spared us the crushing headache and loss of breath, but it didn't make the landing any more graceful. We were tossed into a thick copse of trees as we came out of the blackness, and I immediately tripped over a huge exposed root, scraping my elbow on a branch as I went down. Unfortunately, since the necklace was looped around both our necks, that meant Archer fell too. On top of me. In another lifetime,that might have been kind of pleasant. And yeah, he still smelled nice, and as I grabbed his shoulders to push him away, I remembered that he was a lot stronger than his thin frame would suggest. But none of that mattered. I didn't get to notice those things about him anymore. The ground I was lying on was muddy, and I had a feeling I'd be pulling leaves and twigs out of my hair for all eternity. "Get off of me!" I mumbled against his collarbone, shoving at him. He rolled over onto his back, his sword clanging against a rock or exposed root, but thanks to the necklace, that just pulled me half on top of him. "And here I thought you were playing hard to get," he whispered. Moonlight glinted in his eyes, and he sounded a little out of breath. I told myself it was just from the fall. I thwacked his chest with the palm of my hand, then ducked my head underneath the necklace. Once I was free, I scooted away from him. "Let me guess," I hissed, nodding at the chain. "Something else you stole from Hex Hall." He pushed himself to his feet. "Guilty." "Where the heck was I while you were playing Grand Theft Cellar?" "I only took a few things, and most of those I grabbed during those last few weeks when you weren't talking to me.

When he’d started therapy, he’d been determined—really determined—to heal. To move on from a grief so huge that it might crush him if he couldn’t find a way to fold it up and make it safe.

Many workmen Built a huge ball of masonry Upon a mountain-top. Then they went to the valley below, And turned to behold their work. "It is grand," they said; They loved the thing. Of a sudden, it moved: It came upon them swiftly; It crushed them all to blood. But some had opportunity to squeal.

A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer--an absurd extravagance of energy--but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same.

My anger turned small and hid. It was like that kid feeling you get when you are sad or hurt or lonely and you scream or cry to your parents and they crush you with their grown up feelings. Rage as big as the sky. Loneliness like an ocean you could drown in. Huge grown up feelings that annihilate you where you stand.

The Idiot. I have read it once, and find that I don't remember the events of the book very well--or even all the principal characters. But mostly the 'portrait of a truly beautiful person' that dostoevsky supposedly set out to write in that book. And I remember how Myshkin seemed so simple when I began the book, but by the end, I realized how I didn't understand him at all. the things he did. Maybe when I read it again it will be different. But the plot of these dostoevsky books can hold such twists and turns for the first-time reader-- I guess that's b/c he was writing most of these books as serials that had to have cliffhangers and such. But I make marks in my books, mostly at parts where I see the author's philosophical points standing in the most stark relief. My copy of Moby Dick is positively full of these marks. The Idiot, I find has a few... Part 3, Section 5. The sickly Ippolit is reading from his 'Explanation' or whatever its called. He says his convictions are not tied to him being condemned to death. It's important for him to describe, of happiness: "you may be sure that Columbus was happy not when he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it." That it's the process of life--not the end or accomplished goals in it--that matter. Well. Easier said than lived! Part 3, Section 6. more of Ippolit talking--about a christian mindset. He references Jesus's parable of The Word as seeds that grow in men, couched in a description of how people are interrelated over time; its a picture of a multiplicity. Later in this section, he relates looking at a painting of Christ being taken down from the cross, at Rogozhin's house. The painting produced in him an intricate metaphor of despair over death "in the form of a huge machine of the most modern construction which, dull and insensible, has aimlessly clutched, crushed, and swallowed up a great priceless Being, a Being worth all nature and its laws, worth the whole earth, which was created perhaps solely for the sake of the advent of this Being." The way Ippolit's ideas are configured, here, reminds me of the writings of Gilles Deleuze. And the phrasing just sort of remidns me of the way everyone feels--many people feel crushed by the incomprehensible machine, in life. Many people feel martyred in their very minor ways. And it makes me think of the concept that a narrative religion like Christianity uniquely allows for a kind of socialized or externalized, shared experience of subjectivity. Like, we all know the story of this man--and it feels like our own stories at the same time. Part 4, Section 7. Myshkin's excitement (leading to a seizure) among the Epanchin's dignitary guests when he talks about what the nobility needs to become ("servants in order to be leaders"). I'm drawn to things like this because it's affirming, I guess, for me: "it really is true that we're absurd, that we're shallow, have bad habits, that we're bored, that we don't know how to look at things, that we can't understand; we're all like that." And of course he finds a way to make that into a good thing. which, it's pointed out by scholars, is very important to Dostoevsky philosophy--don't deny the earthly passions and problems in yourself, but accept them and incorporate them into your whole person. Me, I'm still working on that one.

Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer—an absurd extravagance of energy—but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same.

I made a mistake, a huge mistake, but that doesn’t mean I should settle for any less respect.

Dogs are mute and obedient, but they have watched us and know us and can smell how pitiful we are. It should astonish us, move us, overwhelm us that our dogs continue, incredibly, to follow us and obey us. Maybe they despise us. Maybe they forgive us. Or maybe they like having no responsibility. We’ll never know. Maybe they see us as some sort of unfortunate race of overgrown, misshapen beings, like huge sluggish beetles. Not gods. Dogs must have seen through us, they must possess a crushing insight that thousands of years of obedience holds in check.

She’d done everything she could to compensate and influence the future. She wanted nothing but good for her daughters and the burden of it was huge. It weighed her down, and there were days when it almost crushed her. And she’d made him carry the burden, too. Survivor’s guilt. “I worry I haven’t done enough. Or that I haven’t done it right.” “I’m sure every parent thinks that from time to time.

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. “She likes you, man.” “Sure,” I muttered. “She likes me for target practice.” “Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she’s into you.” “Makes a lot of sense.” Beckendorf shrugged. “I know about these things. You ought to ask her to the fireworks.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Beckendorf was lead counselor for Hephaestus. He was this huge dude with a permanent scowl, muscles like a pro ballplayer, and hands calloused from working in the forges. He’d just turned eighteen and was on his way to NYU in the fall. Since he was older, I usually listened to him about stuff, but the idea of asking Annabeth to the Fourth of July fireworks down at the beach—like, the biggest dating event of the summer—made my stomach do somersaults. Then Silena Beauregard, the head counselor for Aphrodite, passed by. Beckendorf had had a not-so-secret crush on her for three years. She had long black hair and big brown eyes, and when she walked, the guys tended to watch. She said, “Good luck, Charlie.” (Nobody ever calls Beckendorf by his first name.) She flashed him a brilliant smile and went to join Annabeth on the red team. “Uh . . .” Beckendorf swallowed like he’d forgotten how to breathe. I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the advice, dude. Glad you’re so wise about girls and all. Come on. Let’s get to the woods.

In effect, terrorists now have the power to ignite war. They almost have their finger on the nuclear button. They almost have the status of heads of state. And that has enhanced the effectiveness and romance of terrorism. The US government's response to September 11 has actually privileged terrorism. It has given it a huge impetus, and made it look like terrorism is the only effective way to be heard. Over the years, every kind of nonviolent resistance movement has been crushed, ignored, kicked aside. But if you're a terrorist, you have a great chance of being negotiated with, of being on TV, of getting all the attention you couldn't have dreamt of earlier.

I don’t date people or love people so easily. Neither do I leave them easily, but when I do, there’s no looking back. Maybe that’s why, when I fall in love, it becomes a huge deal; it becomes the most important thing in my life.

Like a lot of gym teachers, Coach Babcock loved to torture his students. He felt he had failed as a teacher if his students didn't cry out for mercy. He often bragged that he held the school district's record for causing the most hysterical breakdowns in one afternoon. He used such classic forms of torture as weight training, wrestling, long-distance running, rope climing, wind spirits, chin-ups, and the occasional game of wet dodgeball (the wet ball was superloud when it hit a kid, and it left a huge red welt). But his favorite device of torment was so horrible, so truly evil, that it would drive most children to the brink of madness. It was the square dance. For six weeks of the school year, his students suffered through the Star Promenade, the Slip the Clutch, and the Ferris Wheel. As Babcock saw it, square dancing was the most embarrassing and uncomfortable form of dancing ever created, and a perfect way to prepare his students for the crushing heartbreak of life. Square dancing was a metaphor for like- you got swung around and just when you thought you were free, you got dragged back into the dance. He really thought he was doing the kids a favor.

Rashid was crushed in his wheelchair when one of Israel’s huge US-supplied bulldozers demolished his home with the family inside. Thanks to prevailing moral standards, such acts are also excluded from the canon of terrorism (or worse, war crimes), by virtue of wrong agency.3

He didn’t tell her about the waking fucking hell that was the deterioration of a marriage, the bottomless black hole that was the love of your life turning into a stranger, the heartbreak, mind-break, body-break, everything-break of a breakup of that kind, that all that agony was far more intense, dense, and crushingly huge an experience than was the love that had preceded it. Unrequited love, that was a walk in the park. Or, rather, a delicious itch to scratch. Who cares if the itch worsens the more you scratch? Keep on scratching, deliciously.

So, now I know there’s a story. Spill the beans, girl.” Frankie sighed. “Fin used to bring his Naval Academy friends home in the summer. They seemed like gods to me.” She smiled, a little one, and thought maybe it was too sad to be real. “Rye Walsh was his best friend. The CO in the sunglasses last night? I had a huge crush on him.” “The guy who looks like Paul Newman? Wow. So, grab his hand and show him—” “He’s engaged.” “Shit. Not again.” Barb took a drink. “And you’re a damn good girl.” “When I danced with Jamie, I felt safe. Loved, I guess. It was like being home,

Gabi, I was noticing, was a very forgiving person. I've noticed that sometimes smart people aren't. They're more interested in being right, being on top, and they think that means crushing the competition with their huge brains. But Gabi didn't need to put others down to raise herself up. Interesting.

Dark chasms!' I scream from the cliff-edge, 'seize me! Seize me to your foul black bowels and crush my bones!' I am terrified at the sound of my own huge voice in the darkness. I stand there shaking from head to foot, moved to the deep-sea depths of my being, like a creature thrown into audience with thunder.

The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind. It is almost immeasurably huge, and most of it is hostilely empty and cold. It is the setting for great violence, as when occasionally a star explodes, turning to ashes everything within billions of miles. The rare planet whose gravity field would not crush our bones is probably swimming in lethal gases. Even planet Earth, which can be so idyllic and picturesque, is not to be taken for granted. To survive on it men and women have had to struggle for millions of years against ice, fire, floods, wild animals, and invisible microorganisms that appear out of nowhere to snuff us out.

A battle, shield wall to shield wall. Linden wood to linden wood. She imagined meeting a man the size of Forthere, huge with battle rage, stinking with it; dogs dripping and snarling at her legs, her arms. Sharp swords cleaving down, splintering shields, crushing skulls, slicing off faces. Men sworn to follow their lord or die. Victory or death, no middle ground.

In fact, I think all of this screaming about "Political Correctness" that we hear these days in the elite culture is basically just a tantrum over the fact that it has been impossible to crush all of the dissidence and the activism and the concern that's developed in the general population in the last thirty years. I mean, it's not that some of these "P.C." things they point out aren't true-yeah, sure, some of them are true. But the real problem is that the huge right-wing effort to retake control of the ideological system didn't work―and since their mentality is basically totalitarian, any break in their control is considered a huge tragedy: 98 percent control isn't enough, you have to have 100 percent control; these are totalitarian strains. But they couldn't get it, especially among the general population. They have not been able to beat back all of the gains of the popular movements since the 1960s, which simply led to a lot of concern about sexism, and racism, and environmental issues, respect for other cultures, and all this other bad stuff. And it's led to real hysteria among elites, so you get this whole P.C. comedy.

Huge thing’s your ego. Awful that you weren’t the only man for her. Girl scrubs your toilets for twenty-three years, you begrudge her the life she had when you weren’t around.” “But she lied,” he said. “Please. Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste. She never lied. Just never said.

On the east side of the street, the dark old factories—Civil War factories, foundries, brassworks, heavy-industrial plants blackened from the chimneys pumping smoke for a hundred years—were windowless now, the sunlight sealed out with brick and mortar, their exits and entrances plugged with cinderblock. These were the factories where people had lost fingers and arms and got their feet crushed and their faces scalded, where children once labored in the heat and the cold, the nineteenth-century factories that churned up people and churned out goods and now were unpierceable, airtight tombs. It was Newark that was entombed there, a city that was not going to stir again. The pyramids of Newark: as huge and dark and hideously impermeable as a great dynasty’s burial edifice has every historical right to be.

And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round on the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day, everything appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency. Last night, the sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful creature, to such a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing too monstrous to succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident he felt that some interposition must save her from his clutches. But now, when he thought how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking, not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very cradles' heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice, misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount.

What I dreamed of was something like a huge heavenly compressor that would bring down disasters, cataclysms and superhuman tragedies, that would crush beneath it all human beings and all objects, irrespective of their ugliness or their beauty. Sometimes the unusual brilliance of the early spring sky appeared to me like the light of the cool blade of some huge axe that was large enough to cover the entire earth. Then I just waited for the axe to fall—for it to fall with a speed that would not even give one time to think.

You know, the aliens we imagine, the kind of aliens we’d like to attack us, human aliens. You’ve seen them a million times. They swoop down from the sky in their flying saucers to level New York and Tokyo and London, or they march across the countryside in huge machines that look like mechanical spiders, ray guns blasting away, and always, always, humanity sets aside its differences and bands together to defeat the alien horde. David slays Goliath, and everybody (except Goliath) goes home happy. What crap. It’s like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it.

The sea has no sense and no pity. If the steamer had been smaller and not made of thick iron, the waves would have crushed it to pieces without the slightest compunction, and would have devoured all the people in it with no distinction of saints or sinners. The steamer had the same cruel and meaningless expression. This monster with its huge beak was dashing onwards, cutting millions of waves in its path; it had no fear of the darkness nor the wind, nor of space, nor of solitude, caring for nothing, and if the ocean had its people, this monster would have crushed them, too, without distinction of saints or sinners.

It is time for you to go. Lan and I must be on our way to the Stone. There can be no waiting, now.” “No.” He said it quietly, but when Moiraine opened her mouth, he raised his voice. “No! I will not leave her!” The Aes Sedai took a deep breath. “Very well, Perrin.” Her voice was ice; calm, smooth, cold. “Remain if you wish. Perhaps you will survive this night. Lan!” She and the Warder strode down the hall to their rooms. In moments they returned, Lan wearing his color-changing cloak, and vanished down the stairs without another word to him. He stared through the open door at Faile. I have to do something. If it is like the wolf dreams. . . . “Perrin,” came Loial’s deep rumble, “what is this about Faile?” The Ogier came striding down the hall in his shirtsleeves, ink on his fingers and a pen in his hand. “Lan told me I had to go, and then he said something about Faile, in a trap. What did he mean?” Distractedly, Perrin told him what Moiraine had said. It might work. It might. It has to! He was surprised when Loial growled. “No! Perrin, it is not right! Faile was so free. It is not right to trap her!” Perrin peered up at Loial’s face, and suddenly remembered the old stories that claimed Ogier were implacable enemies. Loial’s ears had laid back along the sides of his head, and his broad face was as hard as an anvil. “Loial, I am going to try to help Faile. But I will be helpless myself while I do. Will you guard my back?” Loial raised those huge hands that held books so carefully, and his thick fingers curled as if to crush stone. “None will pass me while I live, Perrin. Not Myrddraal or the Dark One himself.” He said it like a simple statement of fact. Perrin nodded, and looked through the door again. It has to work. I don’t care if Min warned me against her or not! With a snarl he leaped toward Faile, stretching out his hand. He thought he touched her ankle before he was gone.

No, no, my good sir,” said Holmes. “There is a master hand here. It is no case of sawed-off shotguns and clumsy six-shooters. You can tell an old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see one. This crime is from London, not from America.” “But for what motive?” “Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer—an absurd extravagance of energy—but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same.

The retaliation came in all varieties. One variety came largely from the Soviet soldiers. When they entered East Prussia in January, their propaganda officers hung up huge banners: ‘Soldier, you are now entering the lair of the fascist beast!’ The village of Nemmersdorf (now Mayakovskoya) was taken by the 2nd Red Army Guard, a few days later German troops launched a counteroffensive and entered the town again. They found bodies everywhere: refugees crushed under tanks, children shot in their gardens, raped women nailed to barn doors. The cameras rolled, the images were shown all over Germany: this is what happens when the Russians come in.

Luigi, the art teacher, holds up his brush, and we all do the same. I’m not quite sure why we’re mirroring his action, but Luigi is very compelling, more than capable of making four excited girls calm down and concentrate on what he’s telling us. I think it’s partly because he’s very serious. Either he doesn’t have a sense of humor, or it’s extremely well hidden. This, as I’m perfectly aware from years of a girls-only school, is a crucially important quality for male teachers. There aren’t that many of them in a girls’ school, and unless they look like the back of a bus, they inevitably become huge crush-objects. Little girls follow them around in packs, giggling madly, turning bright red and running away when the teacher turns to look at them; older girls wear the shortest skirts and tightest tops they can get away with, and do a lot of what Kelly calls hair-flirting. Male teachers are usually pretty good at coping with the flirting techniques: the best way to get under their skin, forge a special bond with them, is to share their sense of humor, make them laugh. The clever girls know this; the pretty ones usually don’t, because they tend to rely too much on their looks. Of course, the ones who are both clever and pretty do especially well, but that’s true for everything in life.

There is a moment following tragedy that some people never get to experience. You have to be ready for it or it will crush you to dust. It's like a window flung open and naked to the day. It's like being lifted away. It's like being stranded with everything you need. It's the moment you call a cornfield beautiful because you mean it, because you've never seen the world like this before, because newness no longer strikes terror but rather brings hope. You jerk awake into it like meeting yourself on a blind date. You surrender to that sudden first rush of joy without consequence, no more doom or fear or guilt, surrender to the sheer devastating presence of life, huge and indifferent, pushing into you like God's breath.

We cannot pick and choose whom among the oppressed it is convenient to support. We must stand with all the oppressed or none of the oppressed. This is a global fight for life against corporate tyranny. We will win only when we see the struggle of working people in Greece, Spain, and Egypt as our own struggle. This will mean a huge reordering of our world, one that turns away from the primacy of profit to full employment and unionized workplaces, inexpensive and modernized mass transit, especially in impoverished communities, universal single-payer health care and a banning of for-profit health care corporations. The minimum wage must be at least $15 an hour and a weekly income of $500 provided to the unemployed, the disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and those unable to work. Anti-union laws, like the Taft-Hartley Act, and trade agreements such as NAFTA, will be abolished. All Americans will be granted a pension in old age. A parent will receive two years of paid maternity leave, as well as shorter work weeks with no loss in pay and benefits. The Patriot Act and Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the military to be used to crush domestic unrest, as well as government spying on citizens, will end. Mass incarceration will be dismantled. Global warming will become a national and global emergency. We will divert our energy and resources to saving the planet through public investment in renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels. Public utilities, including the railroads, energy companies, the arms industry, and banks, will be nationalized. Government funding for the arts, education, and public broadcasting will create places where creativity, self-expression, and voices of dissent can be heard and seen. We will terminate our nuclear weapons programs and build a nuclear-free world. We will demilitarize our police, meaning that police will no longer carry weapons when they patrol our streets but instead, as in Great Britain, rely on specialized armed units that have to be authorized case by case to use lethal force. There will be training and rehabilitation programs for the poor and those in our prisons, along with the abolition of the death penalty. We will grant full citizenship to undocumented workers. There will be a moratorium on foreclosures and bank repossessions. Education will be free from day care to university. All student debt will be forgiven. Mental health care, especially for those now caged in our prisons, will be available. Our empire will be dismantled. Our soldiers and marines will come home.

The road climbed higher into the mountains of Nikko National Park, the terraced farm fields giving way grudgingly to forests of tiny trees that seemed to be trimmed, the growth around them carefully cultivated. From a narrow defile the car was passed through a massive wooden gate that swung on a huge arch ornately carved with the figures of fierce dragons. From there a perfectly maintained road of crushed white gravel led up the valley to a broad forested ledge through which a narrow stream bubbled and plunged over the sheer edge. The view from the top was breathtaking. Perched on the far edge was a traditionally styled Japanese house, low to the ground and rambling in every direction. Tiled roofs, rice-paper screens and walls, carved beams, courtyards, broad verandas, gardens, ponds, and ancient statues and figures gave the spot an unreal air, as if it were a setting in a fairy tale

No one ever comes back. Millions on millions would be born almost identical, with eyes, a nose, a mouth, a skull and a mind within it, without he who lay there on the bed ever reappearing again. For some years he had lived, eaten, laughed, loved, hoped like all the world. And it was all over for him all over for ever. Life; a few days, and then nothing. One is born, one grows up, one is happy, one waits, and then one dies. Farewell, man or woman, you will not return again to earth. Plants, beast, men, stars, worlds, all spring to life, and then die to be transformed anew. But never one of them comes back—insect, man, nor planet. A huge, confused, and crushing sense of terror weighed down the soul of Duroy, the terror of that boundless and inevitable annihilation destroying all existence. He already bowed his head before its menace. He thought of the flies who live a few hours, the beasts who live a few days, the men who live a few years, the worlds which live a few centuries. What was the difference between one and the other? A few more days' dawn that was all.

No one ever comes back." Millions on millions would be born almost identical, with eyes, a nose, a mouth, a skull and a mind within it, without he who lay there on the bed ever reappearing again. For some years he had lived, eaten, laughed, loved, hoped like all the world. And it was all over for him all over for ever. Life; a few days, and then nothing. One is born, one grows up, one is happy, one waits, and then one dies. Farewell, man or woman, you will not return again to earth. Plants, beast, men, stars, worlds, all spring to life, and then die to be transformed anew. But never one of them comes back—insect, man, nor planet. A huge, confused, and crushing sense of terror weighed down the soul of Duroy, the terror of that boundless and inevitable annihilation destroying all existence. He already bowed his head before its menace. He thought of the flies who live a few hours, the beasts who live a few days, the men who live a few years, the worlds which live a few centuries. What was the difference between one and the other? A few more days' dawn that was all

On August 3, 2012, the fifteenth day of the government offensive, rebels in the city said they were desperately low on ammunition and expressed dismay that the international community had not reacted when a huge massacre could be coming. Again, Libya was the example. Gadhafi threatened to overrun Benghazi and when he tried to do it, NATO started bombing. Now in Syria, Assad was threatening to crush the opposition in Aleppo and had already started doing it, but Washington’s reaction was only hand-wringing. In my conversations with rebels it was clear they were becoming increasingly disheartened and desperate. (The rebels would usually communicate with each other on Skype, blending in with the billions of people using the Internet instead of going through cell-phone towers.) The United States was apparently still skittish about sending in arms because it feared they would end up in the hands of Islamic extremists, but that, like so many unintended consequences of US foreign policy in the Middle East, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this stage the rebels were numerous, strong, motivated, and moderate and I made that clear in my reports on the air.

The river twists and turns to face the city. It looms suddenly, massive, stamped on the landscape. Its light wells up around the surrounds, the rock hills, like bruise-blood. Its dirty towers glow. I am debased. I am compelled to worship this extraordinary presence that has silted into existence at the conjunction of two rivers. It is a vast pollutant, a stench, a klaxon sounding. Fat chimneys retch dirt into the sky even now in the deep night. It is not the current which pulls us but the city itself, its weight sucks us in. Faint shouts, here and there the calls of beasts, the obscene clash and pounding from the factories as huge machines rut. Railways trace urban anatomy like protruding veins. Red brick and dark walls, squat churches like troglodytic things, ragged awnings flickering, cobbled mazes in the old town, culs-de-sac, sewers riddling the earth like secular sepulchres, a new landscape of wasteground, crushed stone, libraries fat with forgotten volumes, old hospitals, towerblocks, ships and metal claws that lift cargoes from the water. How could we not see this approaching? What trick of topography is this, that lets the sprawling monster hide behind corners to leap out at the traveller? It is too late to flee.

There," he said, admiring his own handiwork. "Good as new." Violet glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looked at him doubtfully. "You really think so? 'Good as new'?" He smiled. "I think I did pretty good. It's not my fault you can't walk." She narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to tell him that it was his fault, that she would never have tripped if he'd just stayed the same old Jay he'd always been, gangly and childlike. But she knew that she was being irrational. He was bound to grow up eventually; she'd just never imagined that he'd grow up so well. Instead she accused him: "Well, maybe if you hadn't pushed me I wouldn't have fallen." She made the outlandish accusation with a completely straight face. He shook his head. "You'll never be able to prove it. There were no witnesses-it's just your word against mine." She giggled and hopped down. "Yeah, well, who's gonna believe you over me? Weren't you the one who shoplifted a candy bar from the Safeway?" She limped over to the sink while she taunted him with her words, and she washed the dirt from the minor scrapes on her palms. "Whatever! I was seven. And I believe you were the one who handed it to me and told me to hide it in my sleeve. Technically that makes you the mastermind of that little operation, doesn't it?" He came up behind her, and reaching around her, he poured some of the antibacterial wash onto her hands. She was taken completely off guard by the intimate gesture. She froze as she felt his chest pressing against her back until that was all she could think about for the moment and she temporarily forgot how to speak. She watched as the red scrapes fizzed with white bubble from the disinfectant. He leaned over her shoulder, setting the bottle down and pulling her hands up toward him. He blew on them too. Violet didn't even notice the sting this time. And then it was over. He released her hands, and as she stood there, dazed, he handed her a clean towel to dry them on. When she turned around to face him, she realized that she had been the only one affected by the moment, that his touch had been completely innocent. He was looking at her like he was waiting for her to say something, and she was suddenly aware that her mouth was still open. She finally gathered her wits enough to speak again. "Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn't done it right in front of the cashier, we might have gotten away with it. Instead, you go both of us grounded for stealing." He didn't miss a beat, and he seemed unaware of her temporary lapse. "And some might say that our grounding saved us from a life of crime." She hung the towel over the oven's door handle. "Maybe it saved me, but the jury's still out on you. I always though you were kind of a bad seed." He gave her a questioning look. "Seriously, a 'bad seed,' Vi? When did you turn ninety and start saying things like 'bad seed'?" She pushed him as she walked by, even though he really wasn't in her way. He gave her a playful shove from behind and teased her, "Don't make me trip you again." Now more than ever, Violet hoped that this crush of hers passed soon, so she could get back to the business of being just fiends. Otherwise, this was going to be a long-and painful-year.

I don’t believe in love that never ends,” said Aiden, his whisper clear and distinct. “I don’t believe in being true until death or finding the other half of your soul.” Harvard raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Privately, he considered that it might be good that Aiden hadn’t delivered this speech to this guy he apparently liked so much—whom Aiden had never even mentioned to his best friend before now. This speech was not romantic. Once again, Harvard had to wonder if what he’d been assuming was Aiden’s romantic prowess had actually been many guys letting Aiden get away with murder because he was awfully cute. But Aiden sounded upset, and that spoke to an instinct in Harvard natural as breath. He put his arm around Aiden, and drew his best friend close against him, warm skin and soft hair and barely there shirt and all, and tried to make a sound that was more soothing than fraught. “I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.” “Aiden,” said Harvard, bewildered and on the verge of distress. He felt as if there was something he wasn’t getting here. Even more urgently, he felt he should cut off Aiden. It had been a mistake to ask. This wasn’t meant for Harvard, but for someone else, and worse than anything, there was pain in Aiden’s voice. That must be stopped now. Aiden kissed him, startling and fierce, and said against Harvard’s mouth, “Shut up. Let me… let me.” Harvard nodded involuntarily, because of the way Aiden had asked, unable to deny Aiden even things Harvard should refuse to give. Aiden’s warm breath was running down into the small shivery space between the fabric of Harvard’s shirt and his skin. It was panic-inducing, feeling all the impulses of Harvard’s body and his heart like wires that were not only crossed but also impossibly tangled. Disentangling them felt potentially deadly. Everything inside him was in electric knots. “I’ll let you do anything you want,” Harvard told him, “but don’t—don’t—” Hurt yourself. Seeing Aiden sad was unbearable. Harvard didn’t know what to do to fix it. The kiss had turned the air between them into dry grass or kindling, a space where there might be smoke or fire at any moment. Aiden was focused on toying with the collar of Harvard’s shirt, Aiden’s brows drawn together in concentration. Aiden’s fingertips glancing against his skin burned. “You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.” Harvard made a wretched sound, leaning in to press his forehead against Aiden’s. He’d known Aiden was lonely, that the long line of guys wasn’t just to have fun but tied up in the cold, huge manor where Aiden had spent his whole childhood, in Aiden’s father with his flat shark eyes and sharp shark smile, and in the long line of stepmothers who Aiden’s father chose because he had no use for people with hearts. Harvard had always known Aiden’s father wanted to crush the heart out of Aiden. He’d always worried Aiden’s father would succeed. Aiden said, his voice distant even though he was so close, “I always knew all of you was too much to ask for.” Harvard didn’t know what to say, so he obeyed a wild foolish impulse, turned his face the crucial fraction toward Aiden’s, and kissed him. Aiden sank into the kiss with a faint sweet noise, as though he’d finally heard Harvard’s wordless cry of distress and was answering it with belated reassurance: No, I’ll be all right. We’re not lost. The idea of anyone not loving Aiden back was unimaginable, but it had clearly happened. Harvard couldn’t think of how to say it, so he tried to make the kiss say it. I’m so sorry you were in pain. I never guessed. I’m sorry I can’t fix this, but I would if I could. He didn’t love you, but I do.

In the half darkness, piles of fish rose on either side of him, and the pungent stink of fish guts assaulted his nostrils. On his left hung a whole tuna, its side notched to the spine to show the quality of the flesh. On his right a pile of huge pesce spada, swordfish, lay tumbled together in a crate, their swords protruding lethally to catch the legs of unwary passersby. And on a long marble slab in front of him, on a heap of crushed ice dotted here and there with bright yellow lemons, where the shellfish and smaller fry. There were ricco di mare---sea urchins---in abundance, and oysters, too, but there were also more exotic delicacies---polpi, octopus; aragosti, clawless crayfish; datteri di mare, sea dates; and grancevole, soft-shelled spider crabs, still alive and kept in a bucket to prevent them from making their escape. Bruno also recognized tartufo di mare, the so-called sea truffle, and, right at the back, an even greater prize: a heap of gleaming cicale. Cicale are a cross between a large prawn and a small lobster, with long, slender front claws. Traditionally, they are eaten on the harbor front, fresh from the boat. First their backs are split open. Then they are marinated for an hour or so in olive oil, bread crumbs, salt, and plenty of black pepper, before being grilled over very hot embers. When you have pulled them from the embers with your fingers, you spread the charred, butterfly-shaped shell open and guzzle the meat col bacio----"with a kiss," leaving you with a glistening mustache of smoky olive oil, greasy fingers, and a tingling tongue from licking the last peppery crevices of the shell. Bruno asked politely if he could handle some of the produce. The old man in charge of the display waved him on. He would have expected nothing less. Bruno raised a cicala to his nose and sniffed. It smelled of ozone, seaweed, saltwater, and that indefinable reek of ocean coldness that flavors all the freshest seafood. He nodded. It was perfect.

But now, when he thought how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking, not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very cradles’ heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice, misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount.

The man who had him pinned kicked him over again and pointed down at the tire. "Stay down, you little bastard, or we'll rape your mum and skin her alive." Chris clamped his hands over Michael's ears. When Dean edged the truck forwards, Tommy's eyes jumped from his face. "Mum! Mummy! Help me, Mummy! Mum!" The engine bellowed, Tommy cried, Marie screamed, Frank roared, and Chris' pulse thumped in his ears. Locked in a maniacal fit, Dean cackled at the sky, his pointy nose and gaunt face making him look like a satanic Mr. Punch. He edged forward again. As Michael fought against Chris' restraint, he eased off a little. Should he just let him go? Were the images in his mind worse than those outside? When the truck moved forward again, the thick treads of the huge tires biting into the back of Tommy's head, he squeezed tightly once more. No mind could create anything worse than that. Chris looked away too.  Tommy's scream was so shrill Chris thought all of the glass in the cul-de-sac would crack, and he fought harder against his thrashing son to keep him restrained. When he felt like he couldn't fight the boy's will any more, he let go.  Instead of looking outside, Michael fell to the floor in a ball, scuttled beneath some blankets, and covered his ears. From beneath the sheets, Chris heard his small voice singing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Nudging his boy, Chris waited for him to resurface and put a finger to his lips again. They couldn't afford for the looters to hear them no matter how much it took his son away from their dark reality. The sound of a beeping horn was accompanied by Dean howling and laughing, the vehicle's engine releasing a war cry under the weight of his heavy foot. The cacophony of chaos outside got louder. Frank wailed, Marie let out louder screams, the engine roared, the horn beeped, Dean laughed, and Tommy shrieked. Looking outside again, Chris kept his eyes away from Tommy. Instead, he watched George. If there was anyone who would save them, it was him.  Crunch! Crash!  The truck dropped by six inches. Tommy stopped screaming.  When Dean cut the engine, silence settled over the cul-de-sac, spreading outwards like the thick pool of blood from Tommy's crushed head. Marie's face was locked in a silent scream. Frank slumped further and shook with inaudible sobs. The men, even the weasel with the tennis racket, stood frozen. None of them looked at the dead boy.  Turning away from the murder, Chris looked down to find Michael staring back at him. What could he say to him? Tommy was his best friend. Then, starting low like a distant air-raid siren, Marie began to wail.  After rapidly increasing in volume, it turned into a sustained and brutal cry as if she was being torn in two. Chilled

I’m at my locker; the door is jammed, and I’m trying to yank it open. I finally get the door loose and there’s Josh, standing right there. “Lara Jean…” He has this shell-shocked, confused expression on his face. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since last night. I came by, and nobody could find you…” He holds out my letter. “I don’t understand. What is this?” “I don’t know…,” I hear myself say. My voice feels far away. It’s like I’m floating above myself, watching it all unfold. “I mean, it’s from you, right?” “Oh, wow.” I take a deep breath and accept the letter. I fight the urge to tear it up. “Where did you even get this?” “It got sent to me in the mail.” Josh jams his hands into his pockets. “When did you write this?” “Like, a long time ago,” I say. I let out a fake little laugh. “I don’t even remember when. It might have been middle school.” Good job, Lara Jean. Keep it up. Slowly he says, “Right…but you mention going to the movies with Margot and Mike and Ben that time. That was a couple of years ago.” I bite my bottom lip. “Right. I mean, it was kind of a long time ago. In the grand scheme of things.” I can feel tears coming on so close that if I break concentration even for a second, if I waver, I will cry and that will make everything worse, if such a thing is possible. I must be cool and breezy and nonchalant now. Tears would ruin that. Josh is staring at me so hard I have to look away. “So then…Do you…or did you have feelings for me or…?” “I mean, yes, sure, I did have a crush on you at one point, before you and Margot ever started dating. A million years ago.” “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Because, Lara Jean…God. I don’t know.” His eyes are on me, and they’re confused, but there’s something else, too. “This is crazy. I feel kind of blindsided.” The way he’s looking at me now, I’m suddenly in a time warp back to a summer day when I was fourteen and he was fifteen, and we were walking home from somewhere. He was looking at me so intently I was sure he was going to try to kiss me. I got nervous, so I picked a fight with him and he never looked at me like that again. Until this moment. Don’t. Just please, don’t. Whatever he’s thinking, whatever he wants to say, I don’t want to hear it. I will do anything, literally anything, not to hear it. Before he can, I say, “I’m dating someone.” Josh’s jaw goes slack. “What?” What? “Yup. I’m dating someone, someone I really really like, so please don’t worry about this.” I wave the letter like it’s just paper, trash, like once upon a time I didn’t literally pour my heart onto this page. I stuff it into my bag. “I was really confused when I wrote this; I don’t even know how it got sent out. Honestly, it’s not worth talking about. So please, please don’t say anything to Margot about it.” He nods, but that’s not good enough. I need a verbal commitment. I need to hear the words come out of his mouth. So I add, “Do you swear? On your life?” If Margot was to ever find out…I would want to die. “All right, I swear. I mean, we haven’t even spoken since she left.” I let out a huge breath. “Great. Thanks.” I’m about to walk away, but then Josh stops me. “Who’s the guy?” “What guy?” “The guy you’re dating.” That’s when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good. “Peter. Kavinsky. Peter Kavinsky!

Lark wrapped an arm around me and started to speak until Bailey’s startled voice interrupted us. A huge football player had her pinned against the wall and she was yelling for him to back off. Instead, he crowded her more while playing with her blonde hair. “Hey!” I yelled as Lark and I rushed over. Six four and wide shouldered, the guy was wasted and angry at the interruption. “Fuck off, bitches,” he muttered. Bailey clawed at his neck, but he had her pinned in a weird way, so she couldn’t get any leverage. While I was ready to jump on him in a weak attempt to save my friend, someone shoved the football player off Bailey. I hadn’t even seen the guy appear, but he stood between Bailey and the pissed jerk. “Fuck off, man,” the asshole said. “She’s mine.” “Nick,” Bailey mumbled, looking ready to cry. “He humped my leg. Crush his skull, will ya?” Nick frowned at Bailey who was leaning on him now. The football player was an inch or two bigger than Nick and outweighed him by probably fifty pounds. Feeling the fight would be short, the asshole reached for Bailey’s arm and Nick nailed the guy in the face. To my shock, the giant asshole collapsed on the ground. “My hero,” Bailey said, looking ready to puke. She caressed Nick’s biceps and asked, “Do you work out?” Running his hands through his dark wavy hair, Nick laughed. “You’re so wasted.” “And you’re like the Energizer Bunny,” she cooed. “My bro said you took a punch, yet kept on ticking.” Nick started to speak then heard the asshole’s friends riled up. I was too drunk to know if everything happened really quickly or if my brain just took awhile to catch up. The guys rushed Nick who dodged most of them and hit another. The room emptied out except for Nick, the guys, and us. I grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at one of the guys shoving Nick. When the bottle hit him in the back, the bastard glared at me. “You want to fight, bitch?” “Leave her alone,” Nick said, kicking one guy into the jerk looking to hit me. As impressive as Nick was against six guys, he was just one guy against six. A losing bet, he took a shot to the face then the gut. Lark grabbed a folding chair and went WWE on one guy. I was tossing beers in the roundabout direction of the other guys. Yet, Bailey was the one who ended the fight by pulling out a gun. “Back the fuck off or I’ll burn this motherfucking house to the ground!” she screamed then fired at a lamp. Everyone stopped and stared at her. When she noticed me wide-eyed, Bailey frowned. “Too much?” Grinning, I followed Lark to the door. Nick followed us while the assholes seemed ready to piss themselves. Well, except for an idiot who looked ready to go for Bailey’s gun. "Dude,” Nick muttered, “that’s Bailey Fucking Johansson. Unless you want to end up in a shallow grave, back the fuck off.” “What he said!” Bailey yelled, waving her gun around before I hurried her out of the door. The cold air sobered up Bailey enough for her to return the gun to her purse. She was still drunk enough to laugh hysterically as we reached the SUV. “Did you see me kill that lamp?” “You did good,” I said, groggy as my adrenaline shifted to nausea and the alcohol threatened to come back up on me. Nick walked us to the SUV. “Next time, you might want to wave the gun around before you get drunk and dance.” “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bailey growled, crawling into the backseat. Then, realizing he saved her, she crawled back to face him. “You were so brave. I should totally get you off as a thank you." “Maybe another time,” he said, laughing as she batted her eyes at him. “Are you guys safe to drive?” Lark nodded. “I’m sober enough to remember everything tomorrow. Trust me that there’ll be mocking.

You need to take some acting classes to learn to hide your huge crush on my husband better

Treasure Hunters Who Followed the Restalls When I started this book, I intended to tell the full Oak Island story, including those treasure hunters who came after the Restalls. But space will not allow it, so we will have to be satisfied with the briefest of highlights. • Robert Dunfield was the first treasure hunter after the accident. He had a causeway built connecting the mainland to Oak Island. It allowed mammoth equipment to be moved over to the island. Down at the Money Pit end of the island, no work was done to stop the sea water, but the huge machinery moved soil from this place to that in search of the treasure. The work gouged out part of the clearing so that the Money Pit, which had been 32 feet above sea level, was reduced to just 10 feet. His work drastically changed the terrain, giving free rein to the incoming sea water. It turned that end of the island into a huge heap of slippery mud. No treasure was found. • Dan Blankenship and David Tobias formed Triton Alliance Limited, the next treasure-hunting company. After drilling countless exploratory holes, they put down a mammoth caisson; Dan climbed down inside, but the caisson began to slowly collapse, threatening to crush the life out of him. He barely escaped. Before this near-fatal event, Triton had located and videotaped what many believe to be evidence of treasure within a huge cavern beneath the bedrock of the island. Their video also revealed what appears to be a human hand. • Oak Island Tours Inc., the final treasure-hunting company, is still at work on Oak Island. In fact, they have only just begun. This company includes a pervious Oak Island treasure hunter, Dan Blankenship, and four newcomers from Michigan--Craig Tester, Marty Lagina, Rick Lagina, and Alan J. Kostrzewa. It is reported that they possess adequate financing to see the job through to a successful end. I’ve exchanged emails with one of these men from Michigan and met face-to-face with another, and I’m convinced that they respect the island and the searchers who went before them and that they will give their search for treasure their very best effort. I wish them every success.

Look in the tub. There’s a huge freaking spider in it.” “Is that all?” I ask, relieved. Hell, the way she screamed, I thought someone was stabbing her to death with a rusty knife. “Is that all?” she counters, her voice rising hysterically. “Go and see it. That—thing is a monster.” “Don’t be such a baby,” I reply as I move to the tub and look inside. It’s bright blue, furry, the size of a goddamn softball. “Shit. That is big.” “I told you,” she cries fearfully. “I can’t believe I was in there with that—thing. It looks like a tarantula had sex with a smurf.” My back is to her, so I didn’t have to hide my smile, but seriously, the spiders in the tropics are something else. “I’m sure he was just trying to get a peek at you,” I tease. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this little peeping Tom.” I go back out to my room and grab one of my shoes. I return and it is still trying to climb the slippery sides of the bath. Alright, you little pervert. No more ogling my sexy assistant. The arthropod makes a squashing sound. Wadding up some toilet paper in my hand I scoop up the blob that looks like crushed blueberries. I flush its remains down the toilet, chuck my splattered shoe in the trashcan, and turn around.

His silence made her lift one shoulder defensively. If he was trying to intimidate her, he was doing a first-rate job. Just when she was going to say something else- she didn't know what, but something that would crush this beast and his pretensions- he started forward. At once she realized she had named him correctly. He was a beast. He moved like a panther on the prowl, all smooth and leggy- and he prowled toward her. The closer he got, the bigger he seemed, tall and broad at the shoulder. He seemed an element of nature, a rugged mountain, a powerful sea- or a beast, a huge, ruthless beast who kept his claws hidden until he chose to use them. In a moment of panic, the imposter thought, My God, Madeline, what have you let me in for?

There were twenty-four cubs in Sister’s class, and every cub had to send a valentine to every other cub. They didn’t have to be expensive and you could make them if you wanted to. Sister thought she might just make one for that no-good, rotten Billy Grizzwold. She began to think about what it might say. Roses are red. Violets are blue. Nobody needs a doofus like you. Or: Daffodils are yellow. Roses are red. I need you like a hole in the head! “A penny for your thoughts,” said Mama. “Er--uh,” said Sister, “I was just thinking of a valentine to send to Billy Grizzwold.” “Is Billy a special friend of yours?” asked Mama. “A special friend?” said Sister, her eyes flashing. “Does a friend knock you down when you’re jumping rope? Does a friend chase after you with a dead mouse? Does a friend put a hop toad in your lunch box?” “I suppose not,” said Mama. “But--” “There are no buts about it, Mama,” continued Sister. “That Billy Grizzwold is a no-good nuisance and if he doesn’t stop bothering me…” “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend, Herbie Cubbison, to make him stop?” said Brother, who had come back to the table. “Boyfriend? Boyfriend?” shouted Sister. “You take that back!” “Everyone knows that Sister Bear has a huge crush on Herbie Cubbison.” “Mama, make him take that back!” cried Sister. “I’ve hardly ever said a word to Herbie Cubbison! Brother’s the big valentine sweetheart around here.

Why Maine extends northward almost to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, and it's upper border is perhaps a 100 miles north of Quebec. And another thing I have conveniently forgotten was how incredibly huge America is. As I drive north through the little towns and the increasing forest rolling away to the horizon, the season changed quickly and out of all proportion. Perhaps it was my getting away from the steadying hand of the sea and also perhaps I was getting very far north. The houses had a snow-beaten look and many were crushed and deserted, driven to earth by the winters. Except in the towns there was evidence of a population which had once lived here and farmed and had its being and had then been driven out. The forests were marching back and where farm wagons once had been only the big logging trucks rumbled along. And the game had come back too; deer strayed on the roads and there were marks of bear.

Along with John and Judi, we took a big risk and started filming on the movie before we had a contract signed with MGM. There didn’t seem to be any choice. I imagined all the insurance underwriters across the world reacting to the phrase “live crocodiles.” Those two words would be enough to blow them right out of their cubicles. So we began shooting with our zoo crocodiles, but without signatures on the dotted line for the movie. A particular scene in the script--and a good example of an insurance man’s nightmare--had a crocodile trying to lunge into a boat. Only Steve’s expertise could make this happen, since the action called for Steve and me to be in the boat at the time. If the lunging crocodile happened to hook his head over the edge of the boat, he would tip us both into the water. That would be a one-way trip. “How are you going to work it?” I asked Steve. “Get the crocs accustomed to the dinghy first,” he said. “Then I’ll see if I can get them interacting with me while I’m in the boat.” First he tried Agro, one of our biggest male crocs. Agro was too wary of the boat. He’s a smart crocodile. I think he remembered back when he was captured. He didn’t want any of it. We decided to try with our friend Charlie. Charlie had been very close to ending up at a farm, his skin turned into boots, bags, and belts. He definitely had attitude. He spent a lot of his time trying to kill everything within range. Steve felt good about the possibility of Charlie having a go. Because he was filming a movie and not shooting a documentary, John had a more complex setup than usual, utilizing three thirty-five-millimeter cameras. Each one would film in staggered succession, so that the film magazine changes would never happen all at once. There would never be a time when film was not rolling. We couldn’t very well ask a crocodile to wait while a fresh mag was loaded into a camera. “You need to be careful to stay out of Charlie’s line of sight,” Steve said to me. “I want Charlie focusing only on me. If he changes focus and starts attacking you, it’s going to be too difficult for me to control the situation.” Right. Steve got no argument from me. Getting anywhere near those bone-crushing jaws was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t keen on being down on the water with a huge saltwater crocodile trying to get me. I would have to totally rely on Steve to keep me safe.

You need to be careful to stay out of Charlie’s line of sight,” Steve said to me. “I want Charlie focusing only on me. If he changes focus and starts attacking you, it’s going to be too difficult for me to control the situation.” Right. Steve got no argument from me. Getting anywhere near those bone-crushing jaws was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t keen on being down on the water with a huge saltwater crocodile trying to get me. I would have to totally rely on Steve to keep me safe. We stepped into the dinghy, which was moored in Charlie’s enclosure, secured front and back with ropes. Charlie came over immediately to investigate. It didn’t take much to encourage him to have a go at Steve. Steve grabbed a top-jaw rope. He worked on roping Charlie while the cameras rolled. Time and time again, Charlie hurled himself straight at Steve, a half ton of reptile flesh exploding up out of the water a few feet away from me. I tried to hang on precariously and keep the boat counterbalanced. I didn’t want Steve to lose his footing and topple in. Charlie was one angry crocodile. He would have loved nothing more than to get his teeth into Steve. As Charlie used his powerful tail to propel himself out of the water, he arched his neck and opened his jaws wide, whipping his head back and forth, snapping and gnashing. Steve carefully threw the top-jaw rope, but he didn’t actually want to snag Charlie. Then he would have had to get the rope off without stressing the croc, and that would have been tricky. The cameras rolled. Charlie lunged. I cowered. Steve continued to deftly toss the rope. Then, all of a sudden, Charlie swung at the rope instead of Steve, and the rope went right over Charlie’s top jaw. A perfect toss, provided that had been what Steve was trying to do. But it wasn’t. We had a roped croc on our hands that we really didn’t want. Steve immediately let the rope go slack. Charlie had it snagged in his teeth. Because of Steve’s quick thinking and prompt maneuvering, the rope came clear. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. Steve looked up at the cameras. “I think you’ve got it.” John agreed. “I think we do, mate.” The crew cheered. The shoot lasted several minutes, but in the boat, I wasn’t sure if it had been seconds or hours. Watching Steve work Charlie up close had been amazing--a huge, unpredictable animal with a complicated thought process, able to outwit its prey, an animal that had been on the planet for millions of years, yet Steve knew how to manipulate him and got some fantastic footage. To the applause of the crew, Steve got us both out of the boat. He gave me a big hug. He was happy. This was what he loved best, being able to interact and work with wildlife. Never before had anything like it been filmed in any format, much less on thirty-five-millimeter film for a movie theater. We accomplished the shot with the insurance underwriters none the wiser. Steve wanted to portray crocs as the powerful apex predators that they were, keeping everyone safe while he did it. Never once did he want it to appear as though he were dominating the crocodile, or showing off by being in close proximity to it. He wished for the crocodile to be the star of the show, not himself. I was proud of him that day. The shoot represented Steve Irwin at his best, his true colors, and his desire to make people understand how amazing these animals are, to be witnessed by audiences in movie theaters all over the world. We filmed many more sequences with crocs, and each time Steve performed professionally and perfected the shots. He was definitely in his element. With the live-croc footage behind us, the insurance people came on board, and we were finally able to sign a contract with MGM. We were to start filming in earnest. First stop: the Simpson Desert, with perentie lizards and fierce snakes.

You need to be careful to stay out of Charlie’s line of sight,” Steve said to me. “I want Charlie focusing only on me. If he changes focus and starts attacking you, it’s going to be too difficult for me to control the situation.” Right. Steve got no argument from me. Getting anywhere near those bone-crushing jaws was the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t keen on being down on the water with a huge saltwater crocodile trying to get me. I would have to totally rely on Steve to keep me safe.

But then his tongue moved over me and started to lick the whipped cream over my sex, making my legs fall open, swiping the creamy coolness down and over my cleft, making a long, ragged moan escape me, dragging a rumbling sound from his chest that made another rush of wet pool as his mouth closed over my clit and sucked hard. Then he devoured me, drove me up fast and unrelenting until the orgasm started to crest, seeming to start at the base of my spine and exploding outward until it took over whole body, making me cry out his name as he took possession of my clit and sucked it in pulses as the waves washed over me, dragging it out, intensifying everything. As soon as the waves lessened, he released me and licked a line back upward, taking the whipped cream off my breasts then pressing up to balance over me, wicked look in his eyes. "Tell me." "Tell you what?" I asked, brain nothing but sparking misfirings right then. He smiled at that, either delighted with his prowess or glad to torture me more. Or, more likely, both. I grabbed the can of whipped cream as I moved to straddle him, watching as his eyes went knowing just a second before I started making a line down his stomach with the cream, then down the little happy trail, over his balls, and then up the underside of his cock until there was a large amount on the swollen head. Then I tossed the can to the side and gave him a smile before ducking my head and starting my path down, deciding that while foreplay was always good, it was infinitely better with food involved as my tongue licked the cream off his balls then his shaft before closing my lips around the head and licking it off from there as well, making Brant let out a deep, primal groan that spurred me on, made me work him faster, deeper. "Maddy..." he warned, but I didn't need a warning. I wanted to make him come. I wanted to give him the selfless orgasm he gave me. "Fuck," he growled, his hand crushing into the back of my head as he came down my throat. I worked him for a long moment before letting him slide away, looking up at him to find an intense weight in his gaze. "From now on, we only ever eat dessert off of each other," he said a second later, his hand going under my chin and pulling me until I moved to straddle him, bringing my face close to his. "I can get behind that plan," I agreed with a smile before he yanked me forward and our lips crashed together. It wasn't a slow, sweet, post-orgasm kiss. It was still wild, hungry, primal. It said we weren't done. "Come on," he said when he pulled away, a little out of breath. "Let's go take a shower. That was hot as fuck but we're both sticky now." Thank God. I didn't want to complain, but every time I moved, my skin got stuck to his skin and it was weird and decidedly unsexy. I went to move off him, but his arms went to slip around my lower back, holding me to him as he stood and started walking around the house. Then up the stairs. I was generally not the kind of girl who got carried around. I was fit, sure, but I was tall and leggy and most guys wanted to carry around the short, lithe little women. But since Brant was a huge wall of muscle, he didn't seem bothered by my height and less than dainty limbs. He set me on my feet outside the shower and reached in to put the water on, water I knew would take a couple of minutes to warm up. But he stepped in regardless, cursing at the cold spray. "Yeah, I think not," I said when he looked at me expectantly. I should have known to step away. I really should have. But I didn't and the next thing I knew, he was yanking me in with him, making me let out a string of incredibly unladylike curses before I felt the water get warmer against my back.

If someone crushes a tube of toothpaste and tosses it away capless, experience tells me they are prudent about saving money, though at the end of the day they will spend money on themselves, as if to compensate for their earlier inattention. Consumers who discard a toothpaste tube with its cap screwed down tightly seldom allow themselves to relax, and are reluctant to expose who they really are, or to indulge themselves with a luxury. Consumers who throw away a half-full toothpaste tube are, in general, less secure than people who wait until the tube is depleted.

You think of all these things as you stand and watch this big job. And then, just for a minute, everything changes. The ground, piled with dirt and covered with empty beer cans and crushed coffee containers, turns into cropped Merion blue. The turf surrounds an infield that doesn’t have a pebble on it. The bare steel beams turn into gleaming stands, and they are filled. You can hear the crowd making noise. And now it hits you. Now you realize, for the first time, what this is all about. All of it, all of the workers risking their lives, and all of the huge payrolls and all of the political wrangling. There is a reason for it all: They are building a brand-new stadium for Marvin Throneberry. Marvin Throneberry, who is known as Marvelous Marv to his admirers, plays first base for the New York Mets, the team which is going to play its home games in this new stadium. In fact, Marvelous Marv does more than just play first base for the Mets. He is the Mets.

Some people can predict whether it's going to rain or sense when something bad is going to happen. Murphy had a sixth sense about people hitting on her. She could see it from a mile away, the way a spider can see the movements of a fly. As she approached the counter of Ganax Heating, she tried to look as uninterested as possible. "Is Jodee here?" she asked. She stood at the counter, digging her toes into the linoleum floor. The receptionist was a young guy about her age. "Hey, Murphy." She suddenly recognized him. He'd been in her high school English class. He'd occasionally tracked her down at her locker and had used complex vocabulary words while he talked to her, trying to impress her. "I had a huge crush on you. You were really smart." Murphy sighed. She was incredibly bored. "Precognitive, actually." He blinked at her for a moment. "Yeah, you were really good in English." Murphy's usage of SAT-level vocabulary usually halted the moment she got out of class. She had a thing against big words. In her view, they were superfluous. And she hated the word superfluous. "I don't like being liked for my brain," she said.

I was so distraught. I couldn’t understand all the different ways I was feeling. I was so confused. I did have a crush on Adam. But I felt so guilty about it because that must make me a very shallow person when I was supposed to be in love with James. But was I in love with James? I was afraid to think about that one. It was too huge to contemplate. And then I felt angry with James. Why couldn’t I flirt with Adam and have a bit of fun? But then I felt guilty again because Adam was a person, a nice person, and he deserved better than to be treated by me as some sort of ego balm.

Dante shifted into his Dragon form ahead of us then fell over and crushed a shed at the edge of the vineyard. I roared a laugh as he kept rolling, his huge taloned feet waving in the air before he got himself upright again and shook his head.

Are you finished?” Emma asked. “Have you seen it?” “Yes.” “And?” I considered crushing the handset. “And what?” “You’re not furious?” “Sure I’m furious. My butt looks huge. Are you done venting?” That’s what it was, of course. Venting.

Hi, big man!” A red flower appeared right under Hadjar’s foot. The creature sitting in its petals smiled up at him with its wide, sharp-toothed mouth, and stared at him with its huge, black eyes. Hadjar put his foot down next to the flower and squatted down. “Can I ask you a question?” The creature frowned, as if considering his request, then nodded uncertainly. “But the question has to be small!” “Why?” Hadjar asked in surprise. The creature fluttered its long lashes and burst out laughing. “What a stupid big man you are!” It clutched its stomach and almost fell off the petal. Hadjar pushed the creature back inside the flower with the tip of his index finger. “Thank you, big man.” It smiled. “The question should be small because I’m small. If you ask me any big questions, their weight will crush me.” The creature crossed its arms and frowned. “I don’t want to be crushed!” It stamped its foot. “We’re crushed even without your stupid questions and-” “Where should I go?” Hadjar interrupted it. The flower and the creature swayed slightly. Had Hadjar asked something else, the creature would’ve probably been crushed by the weight of his question. “It’s big,” the creature rasped. “They’ll call you, big man. They call everyone-” “But-” “No more questions!” The creature wagged its finger threateningly at Hadjar. “I’m a flower, not a turtle! They are old and wise and know how to answer questions.

Miss Elizabeth has never been to Old School Custard. Shall we?" "What's the flavor?" "Has that ever stopped us?" Nick pulled out his phone and started tapping. "It's our lucky day, kiddo. Salted Caramel." He turned to me as we headed out the door. "It's a frozen custard shop that makes only one flavor a day, but they always have chocolate and vanilla for backup." "I've never had frozen custard." "You're in for a treat----tons more calories than ice cream, but much creamier. Complete yum." Old School Custard was a small shop with walls covered in pictures of all the local high schools. I found Garfield and imagined Tyler in that huge building, teaching his beloved math. I then noticed an amazing chalk calendar with the flavor for each day listed, with creative drawings, and I understood why it was addicting---who could resist flavors like Malted Milk Balls, Caramel Macchiato, Espresso, or Banana Nutella? I ordered the Turtle Sundae----two scoops of Salted Caramel custard, pecans, hot fudge, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. Nick ordered the Recess, pretty much the same thing, but with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups instead of pecans. And Matt's Playground came complete with crushed Oreos for "dirt" and gummy worms.

huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons.

Just leave him alone,” Conrad said. The two of them never seemed particularly close, but there were times when I saw how well they understood each other, and this was one of them. Seeing Conrad protective of Jeremiah made me feel this huge surge of love for him—it felt like a wave in my chest washing over me. Which then made me feel guilty, because why should I be feeding into a crush when Susannah had cancer?

The victory over Pakistan unleashed a huge wave of patriotic sentiment. It was hailed as ‘India’s first military victory in centuries’,53 speaking in terms not of India the nation, but of India the land mass and demographic entity. In the first half of the second millennium a succession of foreign armies had come in through the north-west passage to plunder and conquer. Later rulers were Christian rather than Muslim, and came by sea rather than overland. Most recently, there had been that crushing defeat at the hands of the Chinese. For so long used to humiliation and defeat, Indians could at last savour the sweet smell of military success.

Jackie Kennedy came into the ballroom in an exquisite gown of ivory satin embroidered with pearls. “I’m so sorry to hear you aren’t feelingwell,” she said, hurrying to Rosemary’s side. Rosemary explained about the mouse-bite, minimizing it so Jackie wouldn’t worry. “You’d better have your legs tied down,” Jackie said, “in case of convulsions.” “Yes, I suppose so,” Rosemary said. “There’s always a chance it was rabid.” She watched with interest as white-smocked interns tied her legs, and her arms too, to the four bedposts. “If the music bothers you,” Jackie said, “let me know and I’ll have it stopped.” “Oh, no,” Rosemary said. “Please don’t change the program on my account. It doesn’t bother me at all, really it doesn’t.” Jackie smiled warmly at her. “Try to sleep,” she said. “We’ll be waiting up on deck.” She withdrew, her satin gown whispering. Rosemary slept a while, and then Guy came in and began making love to her. He stroked her with both hands—a long, relishing stroke that began at her bound wrists, slid down over her arms, breasts, and loins, and became a voluptuous tickling between her legs. He repeated the exciting stroke again and again, his hands hot and sharp-nailed, and then, when she was ready-ready-more-than-ready, he slipped a hand in under her buttocks, raised them, lodged his hardness against her, and pushed it powerfully in.Bigger he was than always; painfully, wonderfully big. He lay forward upon her, his other arm sliding under her back to hold her, his broad chest crushing her breasts. (He was wearing, because it was to be a costume party, a suit of coarse leathery armor.) Brutally, rhythmically, he drove his new hugeness. She opened her eyes and looked into yellow furnace-eyes, smelled sulphur and tannis root, felt wet breath on her mouth, heard lust-grunts and the breathing of onlookers. This is no dream, she thought. This is real, this is happening. Protest woke in her eyes and throat, but something covered her face, smothering her in a sweet stench. The hugeness kept driving in her, the leathery body banging itself against her again and again and again. The Pope came in with a suitcase in his hand and a coat over his arm. “Jackie tells me you’ve been bitten by a mouse,” he said. “Yes,” Rosemary said. “That’s why I didn’t come see you.” She spoke sadly, so he wouldn’t suspect she had just had an orgasm. “That’s all right,” he said. “We wouldn’t want you to jeopardize your health.” “Am I forgiven, Father?” she asked. “Absolutely,” he said. He held out his hand for her to kiss the ring. Its stone was a silver filigree ball less than an inch in diameter; inside it, very tiny, Anna Maria Alberghetti sat waiting. Rosemary kissed it and the Pope hurried out to catch his plane.

Hey, Alina,” Matvey says, taking one of the plates she offers. Her whole face heats up at his attention. It’s no secret that my eight-year-old sister has a huge crush on Matvey. It’s something he pretends he doesn’t see, but he always makes a point of saying hi to her. He has a younger sister, so he knows how it is.

I used to have a huge crush on you when I was a kid,” I started, warming him up. “Up until I was about seventeen, there were posters of you all over my room. “ In for a penny, in for a pound. All right. I could do this. Honesty mattered. “I was in love with you. I told everyone I was going to marry you someday. “You were my idol, Rey. I kept playing soccer because of you.

As commander of a battalion his trade had been to fight the enemy with steel. As a staff officer, it seemed, his role was to fight his own side with paper, more secretary than soldier. He felt like a man trying to push a huge stone up a hill. Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, “Well, it’s not my rock.

The peasantry had only recently been freed from slavelike servitude, and they were crushed with debt. The economy was stagnant. The country was hardly industrialized; there were not many factories. Though in St. Petersburg itself, nobles and sophisticates attended balls in Parisian gowns and discussed the poetry of the French, this ramshackle empire also included huge, frigid wastes of fir tree and tundra, deserts where the only inhabitants were nomadic families with their herds, and mountain towns that had never even heard the name of their distant ruler.

Gazing out of the window, the gravel path roared as it was crushed into submission under the wheels of the car that was taking me towards a menacing looking medieval castle with two huge and terrifying turrets that seemingly reached out towards me. I imagined that I was the gravel and the wheels of the car were the social care system.

Rahab could swim the waters above and below the firmament. It was all her territory. But her special domain was the Abyss. From there, she could access every body of water that ultimately connected to this underwater abode. Her birth waters were Lake Urimiya, where Elohim created her and held her at bay when he established the heavens and the earth. She was in the Lake again at that moment. She had returned to this sacred ground to give birth to her own spawn. The Nephilim paddled on the surface of the water. They were unaware of the nemesis below, a protective mother sea dragon and her very hungry newborn offspring, Leviathan. Leviathan was every bit the armored sea serpent as its parent. Even so young, it was already about half the size of Rahab. But it had something its progenitor did not: seven heads. Seven dragon heads on seven snakelike necks with seven times the predator’s snapping jaws, and seven times the rows of razor teeth. Leviathan’s strike zone was wide and it was more agile and speedier than Rahab. And it had seven times the fury. The Nephilim were oblivious to the shadowy forms approaching them from the darkness below. They filled the waters with their crafts The lead skiffs were only two thirds of the way across. The first casualties came at the front of the line. A huge explosion of water erupted. Pontoons snapped in two, throwing Nephilim into the water. Yahipan screamed, “RAHAB!!” The Nephilim stopped rowing and looked about the water. The huge serpentine armor broke the surface again, crushing a slew of the flatboats and dragging Nephilim into the depths. The spiny back cut through the water and disappeared. The Rephaim yelled orders. The Nephilim rowed for their lives. But it was an easy feast for the monsters of the deep. Rahab simply opened her mouth and scooped up dozens of Nephilim like so many minnows. Leviathan came next, with the seven dragon heads snapping up Nephilim faster than they could get out of the way. Leviathan might be a newborn and smaller than its mother, but already armor covered it. It was even able to launch small pillars of fire from its nostrils. Its youth and speed made up for its size as it darted and dodged around, all of its heads coordinated in a bloodbath of feeding. Inanna wondered where all that food went. Some Nephilim tried to fight back But it was futile and the smart ones made for the shoreline. They hoped they might get lucky and be overlooked by their serpentine predators. That was only the beginning. The sorry paddlers were no match for the worst of all Elohim’s creatures. Another creature came up from the depths. Its body could not be seen, only tentacles bursting from the water and crushing demigods in its grip. Yahipan and Thamaq were in the middle of the mayhem and counted eight of these snakelike appendages grabbing hapless soldiers.

On earth there was not its like, a creature without fear. It was the king over all the sons of pride. And right now, it was a couple feet below the waves, ready to rise up and crush their boat into splinters. But it didn’t. It didn’t seem to swim or move. It was as if the sea dragon had been hypnotized into stillness. Then Simon could see it was Jesus who was walking upon its back, mere inches below the water. That is when Simon heard the voice of Jesus calling to them from the water. “Take heart! It is me. Do not be afraid!” The storm was subsiding and the waves had lessened. The rain became a drizzle. Peter blurted out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Simon knew Peter was gutsy, but he was also a bit thoughtless. He obviously had not seen what was lurking in the dark waters. Simon watched as Peter stepped out of the boat and onto the water. His eyes were fixed on Jesus, so he did not see the creature that he was walking upon below his feet in the darkness. Nobody did, except Simon. The dragon was so huge that he must have created a walkway for Jesus to approach the boat. Did he ride the creature to this location as one would a trained pack animal? Simon saw Peter look down and when he did, he began to sink in the water, but then Jesus held out his hand, Peter grabbed it, and he rose back up. The two of them walked back to the boat and got inside it. As soon as they did, the wind stopped, the rains ceased, and Simon could see that the sea dragon was gone.

So?” I say, kneeling down on the floor and sticking Charade in the DVD player. “So you don’t have any friends. You don’t know what it’s like.” Mom unfolds one of Gran’s afghans and drapes it over the back of the couch. “That’s not true. Alex has friends.” Claire fists her hands on her hips. “Name one.” Mom’s face goes a little blank as she thinks about it. Then she says, “Paisley,” and smiles at me. “She sits next to you in Sunday School.” I turn my head to the side so she can’t see me grimace. Paisley isn’t exactly my friend. She does sit next to me in Sunday School, but we never speak. She’s weird, even for my standards. For one, she always wears flannel pajamas and hiking boots. To church and to school. And two? She always has a handful of mayonnaise packets in her backpack. Which she snacks on. During class. I shudder just thinking about the sound she makes sucking on those packets. “And what about Jensen?” Mom says. “He’s been your friend since you two were in the church nursery together.” I roll my eyes. “Mom, just because Paisley and Jensen are in my general vicinity at church and school doesn’t mean they’re my friends.” “See?” Claire says.“Jensen isn’t her friend. She just has that huge crush on him still.” I don’t even attempt to dispute it like I normally would. Claire’s like a pit bull when it comes to arguing. Once she sinks her teeth in, she doesn’t let go. And I don’t have the energy to spar with her tonight. Besides, it’s not like my crush on Jensen was ever a secret in this family. Even Pops knows about it. He used to pinch me right above my knee where it tickles, and if I laughed, it meant I was “boy crazy.” Boy crazy for Jensen Peters. I laughed every time, dammit.

I love you.”  My admission took me by surprise. I didn’t see him move.  He embraced me again, crushing me in a spinning hug.  The room twirled around us at a dizzying speed, and I didn’t attempt to focus on it.  Instead, I looked down at Clay’s face.  He wore a huge smile.  I grinned back and noted his canines were normal for the first time ever. “Oh!”  I squirmed to get down, excited at the size of his teeth.  He grudgingly released me.  “Please can we get rid of the beard?”  Yes, I hopped from foot to foot like a kid begging for cotton candy.  I wanted to see him just once without facial hair.  If he wanted to grow it back, I wouldn’t mind.  I’d fallen in love with him as he was, after all. He nodded, laughing at me. “And

Henry wouldn’t look at me. “Henry? Whose ass do I need to kick?” “You can’t.” “I can’t what? Kick a giant’s ass?” I said softly, remembering his cryptic talk of giants. “Not a giant. A girl,” Henry whispered. “A girl?” I wouldn’t have been more surprised if he told me Millie had punched him in the face. “My friend.” I shook my head. “No. Not a friend. Friends don’t smack you around.” Henry looked at me and raised his eyebrows doubtfully. Touché. “Well, they don’t smack you around unless you ask them to,” I amended, thinking of all my friends at the gym who regularly slapped me around. “What did you do?” I asked, trying to understand. “Did you say something that upset her? Or is she just a bully?” “I told her she was like a sumo wrestler,” Henry said softly. “You said that to her?” I yelped. “Ah, Henry. Don’t tell me you said that to her.” It was all I could do not to laugh. I covered my mouth so Henry wouldn’t see my lips twitching. Henry looked crushed. “Sumo wrestlers are heroes in Japan,” he insisted. “Henry,” I groaned. “Do you like this girl?” Henry nodded. “Cool. Why?” “Sumo wrestlers are powerful,” Henry said. “Henry, come on, man. You don’t like her because she’s powerful,” I insisted. Henry looked confused. “Wait. You do?” Now I was confused. “The average sumo wrestler weighs over 400 pounds. They are huge.” “But she’s not huge, is she?” “No. Not huge.” “Does she look like a sumo wrestler?” I asked. Henry shook his head. “No. But she’s big . . . maybe bigger than other girls?” Henry nodded. Okay now we were getting somewhere. “So she punched you when you told her she reminded you of a sumo wrestler.” Another nod. “She blacked your cheekbone and split your lip.” Henry nodded again and smiled slightly, as if he was almost proud of her. “Why did you say that, Henry? She obviously didn’t like it.” I couldn’t think of a girl who would. Henry gritted his jaw and fisted his hands in his hair, obviously frustrated. “Sumo wrestlers are awesome!” he cried.

We all fail at times or make huge mistakes. I was among the worst. It can hurt. It can crush your spirit. To move on, we need to learn to sincerely forgive ourselves... again and again and again and again. As many times as necessary - so we can be able to feel the peace we need in our souls to keep living. Not just to be alive, but to live. Of course it also helps to forgive others when we are ready and able to, but its crucial that we need to learn to forgive ourselves too.

The wall was indeed falling. Down it came with a thunderous crash, the roar of it almost drowning out the screams of the archers on the wall as they fell and were crushed by the huge blocks. The houses that were on the wall fell too, and Othniel grasped Ardon’s arm. “God is destroying the walls!” he cried. “But not that part. Look!” Othniel saw that part of the wall was still standing and that from one of the houses the scarlet rope on which they had escaped from Jericho was dangling. “Come on. We’ll get them out.” Othniel drew his sword along with the other soldiers. They were all screaming and running straight for the wall. The cries of the dying who had been crushed by the wall were soon joined by the shouts of the remaining soldiers who were met by the flashing swords of Joshua’s army.

One of the functions of consciousness is to justify on-going behaviour: that is to make excuses, to ‘rationalise.’ If you hypnotise someone to get angry at someone else for no good reason, just because the hypnotist suggested it and the hypnotised person is asked why they are angry, they will justify their anger! Even though it wasn’t their idea. This has huge ramifications regarding whether our thoughts are our own! Think about it. One of the prime functions of consciousness is to ‘think critically,’ this faculty is strongly present from early childhood; however is can be crushed if what children experience is repeatedly contradicted by parents, teachers and other ‘authority figures.’ Why? The child’s need for approval and attention, support and survival override the intelligence and function of the critical faculty and the child instead begins to ‘parrot’ those who have power over it in order to ‘fit in’ and be a ‘good boy/girl.’ Totalitarian political cults have always known this and used it to their advantage.

Suddenly, the man was thrown off her. Darcy looked around, but saw nothing. She rose up on her elbows to see the man climbing to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. His four comrades were looking up to the sky nervously. A huge, dark shape descended from the sky, vanishing quickly. Along with one of her attackers. Darcy was afraid to move and be taken as well. She remained still, her chest heaving. Another shape formed out of the dark sky. She could only stare openmouthed at the dragon coming right for her. Just before he touched down, the dragon shifted, taking the form of a man—a man that left her breathless and awestruck. There was no denying she was looking at a Dragon King. He stood naked, his hands at his sides while his gaze was riveted on the men who accosted her. The shadows kept much of him out of sight, but the streetlamps shed enough light of the hard sinew of his body that she wanted to see more. His lips peeled back in a snarl as he fought the four remaining men. He moved quickly, as if it were as effortless as breathing. The men began to throw huge bubbles of magic at the Dragon King. He dodged many of them. The few that hit him barely made an impact other than to infuriate him, if his bared teeth were any indication. The man—or whatever he was—who had stopped her in the pub was struck down with lethal force by the Dragon King. Darcy almost cheered, but it got lodged in her throat when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Had she not turned right then, Darcy would never have seen the second dragon swoop from the sky and wrap its talons around another of the men before flying away, crushing him. That left just two of her attackers. They and the Dragon King circled each other on the street. “She’s ours,” one of the red-eyed men said. The Dragon King merely raised a brow. “Think again, Dark.” More globes of magic flew from the two Dark, but the Dragon King was too fast. He came up behind one of the Dark and ripped out his spinal column. The same instant the dragon grabbed the other. Both Dark fell lifeless to the ground a moment later. Darcy hadn’t moved a muscle in the few minutes that had passed. The need that had assaulted her earlier with the Dark was now gone. But she wasn’t alone. The Dragon King’s gaze turned to her. Darcy watched him standing in the glow of the streetlight, completely mesmerized by the dragon tat that ran from the King’s right shoulder, under his armpit, and down his side to the top of his right thigh. The dragon’s head was at the front of the man’s shoulder and had his mouth open as if on a roar. He was rearing with his wings up and out. It was his long tail that stopped at the King’s thigh. The King glistened with sweat that made his muscles gleam in the light. Darcy had the absurd notion to run her hands all over his body, learning the feel of his hard muscles and warm skin. Her gaze traveled down his wide chest to his washboard stomach and narrow waist. Then lower...

During our meetings in Peshawar, Abdul Haq...asked me why the United States does not pay attention to terrorism. He compared America to a huge elephant: "One hundred people push on it and it doesn't blink, but when it decides to move, it lumbers forward and crushes everything.

The old order types were simple and straightforward and mainly sensible. The new order types that accompanied the explosion of high-frequency trading were nothing like them, either in detail or spirit. When, in the summer of 2012, the Puzzle Masters gathered with Brad and Don and Ronan and Rob and Schwall in a room to think about them, there were maybe one hundred fifty different order types. What purpose did each serve? How might each be used? The New York Stock Exchange had created an order type that ensured that the trader who used it would trade only if the order on the other side of his was smaller than his own order; the purpose seemed to be to prevent a high-frequency trader from buying a small number of shares from an investor who was about to crush the market with a huge sale. Direct Edge created an order type that, for even more complicated reasons, allowed the high-frequency trading firm to withdraw 50 percent of its order the instant someone tried to act on it. All of the exchanges offered something called a Post-Only order. A Post-Only order to buy 100 shares of Procter & Gamble at $80 a share says, “I want to buy a hundred shares of Procter & Gamble at eighty dollars a share, but only if I am on the passive side of the trade, where I can collect a rebate from the exchange.” As if that weren’t squirrely enough, the Post-Only order type now had many even more dubious permutations. The Hide Not Slide order, for instance. With a Hide Not Slide order, a high-frequency trader—for who else could or would use such a thing?—would say, for example, “I want to buy a hundred shares of P&G at a limit of eighty dollars and three cents a share, Post-Only, Hide Not Slide.” One of the joys of the Puzzle Masters was their ability to figure out what on earth that meant. The descriptions of single order types filed with the SEC often went on for twenty pages, and were in themselves puzzles—written in a language barely resembling English and seemingly designed to bewilder anyone who dared to read them. “I considered myself a somewhat expert on market structure,” said Brad. “But I needed a Puzzle Master with me to fully understand what the fuck any of it means.” A Hide Not Slide order—it was just one of maybe fifty such problems the Puzzle Masters solved—worked as follows: The trader said he was willing to buy the shares at a price ($80.03) above the current offering price ($80.02), but only if he was on the passive side of the trade, where he would be paid a rebate. He did this not because he wanted to buy the shares. He did this in case an actual buyer of stock—a real investor, channeling capital to productive enterprise—came along and bought all the shares offered at $80.02. The high-frequency trader’s Hide Not Slide order then established him as first in line to purchase P&G shares if a subsequent investor came into the market to sell those shares. This was the case even if the investor who had bought the shares at $80.02 expressed further demand for them at the higher price. A Hide Not Slide order was a way for a high-frequency trader to cut in line, ahead of the people who’d created the line in the first place, and take the kickbacks paid to whoever happened to be at the front of the line.

But Charles, at that very moment, was roving the house in search of Amy.  He had stayed at the ball only long enough to claim the first dance with his sister; then, when the dancing was in full swing, he'd melted into the crush, strode through the doors leading back to the main part of the castle, and gone looking for Amy. But she was not in her rooms.  She was not in the dining room, the library, or wandering the halls.  It wasn't until he strode into the Gold Parlor and found Juliet — who would not, of course, be attending the ball in her advanced condition — quietly working on a piece of embroidery, that Charles got the first clue to her whereabouts. He bowed to his sister-in-law, who looked up at him in some surprise. "Why, hello, Charles.  What are you doing out here?  You look most annoyed." "Amy.  I can't find her anywhere, haven't seen her all day and I'm sick to death of everyone monopolizing her time.  You haven't seen her, have you?" Juliet looked at him peculiarly, then lowered her needlework, a little smile touching her lips.  "Actually, I have.  You might try checking the ballroom." "She wouldn't be in there." Juliet's eyes sparkled with mirth.  "Oh, I wouldn't be so sure." At that moment Gareth, who was dividing his time between his wife and the ball, entered the room, fashionably splendid in raspberry silk, tight breeches, and shoes sporting huge Artois buckles.  In his hand were two glasses, one of sherry, the other of cider, the latter of which he handed to his wife.  He had caught the tail end of the conversation. "Yes, you really should check the ballroom, Charles," he said, his own blue eyes twinkling. Was there some damned conspiracy going on here? 

And at that moment Charles's thoughts raced back to the time he'd lain blind and helpless in Sylvanus Leighton's house, with only Amy to look after him in his days of darkest despair.  He recalled how many moments they'd shared together, how much they'd come to mean to each other, and a huge knot of emotion closed the back of his throat as the full magnitude of his love for this woman nearly crushed him beneath its weight.  He could never live without her.  Ever.  And this time, of course, he had no guilt over Juliet, no feelings of self-doubt, and absolutely no reason this side of heaven not to give in to his most fervent desire:  to be with Amy, always. He had come full circle, then. He was the man he had always been. The Beloved One. Charles tilted his head back within Amy's arms and, looking up into her eyes, saw such a wealth of love for him there that he thought his heart was going to come bursting right out of his chest. He lifted her hand to his lips.  "Amy.  My dearest, precious Amy.  I love you.  Will you marry me?" Her eyes suddenly misty, she looked up at Lucien. He only smiled.  "I believe, my dear, that the traditional reply is 'I will."  

Charles stood frozen, afraid to come any closer.  Amy turned her head on the pillow and smiled at him, her eyes suddenly misty beneath their fan of thick black lashes.  For a long moment the two gazed at each other; then Charles moved forward, toward the bed, toward the crying child.  He never noticed that Juliet and the midwife stole from the room. "Amy," he breathed, staring down at the tiny, wailing bundle that their love had made.  "Oh, Amy . . ." "Want to hold her?" Charles paled, unable to forget when Gareth had asked him much the same thing before placing Charlotte in his arms.  He remembered the terrible awkwardness of that moment, the crushing love he'd thought to feel for the toddler but hadn't, the mixed hurt and relief when Charlotte had suddenly started crying and reached for Gareth.  Now, he stood frozen and uncertain, desperately wanting to hold the baby, desperately afraid to for fear that it would be a repeat of the last time he'd held his own flesh-and-blood.  Especially as this one was a red-faced, black-haired, puckered bundle of screaming misery. "Go ahead," Amy prompted.  "She won't bite." Swallowing hard, Charles reached down. Put his hands around his tiny daughter. And gingerly picking her up, cradled her tiny body to his chest. Instantly, the baby stopped crying — and Charles felt as though the mallet of the gods had just smote him across the heart.  A wall of emotion nearly cracked his chest and closed his throat, and for a moment he could do nothing but gulp back the huge lump there as he cupped the baby's head in his palm and stared reverently down at her.  With a shaking hand, he touched one curled, tiny fist.  Smoothed the downy-soft hair.  Kissed the red and wrinkled brow and then, moisture sparkling on his own gold lashes, he looked over at Amy, whose eyes were dark with love as she watched the two of them together. "I think she's going to be Papa's little girl," she said softly. "Oh, Amy," he blurted, in a raw, hoarse voice.  "Oh, dearest, the world itself is not big enough to hold all the love I have for you . . . for this little girl.  Thank you for making me the happiest man in England — not just once this year, but twice."  Still cradling his daughter, he got down on his knees before the bed, took Amy's arm, and, kissing her palm, pressed it to his cheek to stop the sudden flood of emotion. A

It will be a war between an elephant and a tiger. If the tiger ever stands still the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger does not stand still. He lurks in the jungle by day and emerges only at night. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his hide, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death. That will be the war of Indochina.”39

The murderers are loose! They search the world All through the night, oh God, all through the night! To find the fire kindled in me now, This child so like a light, so still and mild. They want to put it out. Like pouring ink Their shadows seep from angled walls; Like scrawny cats they scuttle Timidly across the footworn steps. And I am shackled to my bed With grating chains all gnawed with rust That weigh upon me, pitiless and strong. And bite raw wounds into my helpless arms. The murderer has come! He wears a hat, A broad-brimmed hat with towering pointed peak; Upon his chin sprout tiny golden flames That dance across my body; it is good… His huge nose sniffs about and stretches out Into a tentacle that wriggles like a rope. Out of his fingernails crawl yellow maggots, Saffron seeds that sprinkle down on me Into my hair and eyes. The tentacle Gropes for my breasts, at rose-brown nipples, And I see its white flesh twist into the blackness; Something sinks upon me, sighs and presses— I can’t go on…I can’t…Oh let the blade strike down Like a monstrous tooth that flashes from the sky! Oh crush me! There, where blood-drops fly, Can you hear it cry, can you hear it? “Mother!” Oh the stillness… In my womb: the axe. From either side of it break forks of flame. They meet and fold together now: My child. Of dark green bronze, so stern and grave.