I Could Have Eaten That Quotes

It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.

It’s you I love,” he says. ”I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

Sorry to wake you, but we have to be somewhere soon, remember?" Ash grunted and, to my surprise, shifted to his back and put the pillow over his head. "I don't suppose I could convince you to go without me," he groaned, his voice muffled beneath the fabric. "Tell Mab I've been eaten by a manticore or something?

There are a lot of things i wanted to do. I wanted to become a teacher, and an astronaught, and a baker… I wanted to go to a bunch of different donut shops and ask for one of everything! And I wanted to tell the ice-cream man to give me one of everything, too! I wish i could have five lives! Then i could have been born in five different towns, and eaten five lifetime’s worth of food, and had five different careers, and… fallen in love with the same person, five times

Oh, Rusty, why did you let her in?" Angela said. "We could have just lain down on the floor until she went away. We could've had a nice floor nap." "Have you guys eaten?" Kami asked. "I'm starving." "Cooking is so much trouble," Rusty said mournfully. "You could order in," Kami suggested. "Delivery people are so annoying," Angela responded.

Did you eat my Twinkies?" She gulped. Keeping her eyes glued to the whip, she said, "Exactly what Twinkies are we talking about?" "The Twinkies in the cupboard over the sink. The only Twinkies in the trailer." His fingers convulsed around the coils of leather. Oh, Lord, she thought. Flayed to death for a Twinkle. "Well?" "It, uh — it won't happen again, I promise you. But they didn't have any special marking on them, so there was no way I could tell they were yours." Her eyes remained riveted on the whip. "And normally I wouldn't have eaten them— I never eat junk food-—but I was hungry last night, and, well, when you think about it, you'll have to admit I did you a favor because they're clogging my arteries now instead of yours." His voice was quiet. Too quiet. In her mind she heard the howl of a rampaging Cossack baying at a Russian moon. "Don't touch my Twinkies. Ever. If you want Twinkies, buy your own.

...if the spell was off, I’d have my heart eaten before I could turn around.” “Don’t you want your heart eaten?” asked the fire. [...] “Naturally I don’t,” Sophie answered.

I suppose you could call me...Soot," said the thing. "Yes...Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name." "Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?" "Boredom," said Soot.

Oh fuck, he was right there. I was wet as hell and he could probably smell me now. I should have eaten strawberries or melon or a dozen roses or an entire mint plant. Did that work for women? I read an article that it worked for men. Their spunk tasted like what they ate. Did my vagina taste like spaghetti right now? God dammit! I shouldn't have eaten dinner!

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of, the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends, and a more-than minor life. And then i screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there's no sugar-coating it: She deserved better friends. When she fucked up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified. into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led for her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe in it spite of having lost her. Beacause I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know that she forgives me for being dumb and sacred and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her. And here's how I know: I thought at first she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her-green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs-would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just a matter, and matter gets recycled. But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska's genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirety. There is a part of her knowable parts. And that parts has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, One thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself -those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. So I know she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Eidson's last words were: "It's very beautiful over there." I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.

He scooped up Victoria practically before she hit the ground, well within the five-second rule. If she'd been a potato chip, he could have still eaten her. Not something I particularly wanted to contemplate.

Listen, now, you're going to die, Ray-mond K. K. K. Hessel, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. So lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. I don't give a shit. I have a gun. Finally, you were listening and coming out of the little tragedy in your head. Fill in the blank. What does Raymond Hessel want to be when he grows up? Go home, you said you just wanted to go home, please. No shit, I said. But after that, how did you want to spend your life? If you could do anything in the world. Make something up. You didn't know. Then you're dead right now, I said. I said, now turn your head. Death to commence in ten, in nine, in eight. A vet, you said. You want to be a vet, a veterinarian. You could be in school working your ass off, Raymond Hessel, or you could be dead. You choose. I stuffed your wallet into the back of your jeans. So you really wanted to be an animal doctor. I took the saltwater muzzle of the gun off one cheek and pressed it against another. Is that what you've always wanted to be, Dr. Raymond K. K. K. K. Hessel, a veterinarian?... So, I said, go back to school. If you wake up tomorrow morning, you find a way to get back into school. I have your license. I know who you are. I know where you live. I'm keeping your license, and I'm going to check on you, mister Raymond K. Hessel. In three months, and then six months, and then a year, and if you aren't back in school on your way to being a veterinarian, you will be dead... Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you've ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life.

If my life were a book, I would have masking tape holding my hinges together. My pages would be loose, my edges tattered and my boards exposed, the front flyleaf torn and the leather mottled and moth-eaten. I'd have to take myself apart and put myself back together, as any good book restoration expert would do.

They have no idea what a bottomless pit of misery I am. They will have to do more and more and more...but they don’t know how enormous my need is. They don’t know how much I will demand from them before I can even think about getting better. They do not know that this is not some practice fire drill meant to prepare them for the real inferno, because the real thing is happening right now. All the bells say: too late. Its much too late and I’m sure that they are still not listening. They still don’t know that they need to do more and more and more, they need to try to get through to me until they haven’t slept or eaten or breathed fresh air for days, they need to try until they’ve died for me. They have to suffer as I have. And even after they’ve done that, there will still be more. They will have to rearrange the order of the cosmos, they will have to end the cold war...they will have to cure hunger in Ethiopia, and end the sex trade in Thailand and stop torture in Argentina. They will have to do more then they ever thought they could if they want me to stay alive. They have no idea how much energy and exasperation I am willing to suck out of them until I feel better. I will drain them and drown them until they know how little of me there is left even after I’ve taken everything they’ve got to give me because I hate them for not knowing.

I could have picked up a stomach bug or eaten something which didn’t agree with me.” Wyatt’s gaze dropped to my belly and then moved back up to my face to meet mine. “You didn’t catch anything except my baby.” I

Kelly looked at the cop, then sighed. “What a cluster. I take it you haven’t been killing young women and leaving their half-eaten bodies in the desert?” Adam was ticked. I could tell it even if he was looking like a reasonably calm businessman. Adam’s temper was the reason he wasn’t one of Bran’s werewolf poster boys. When angered, he often gave in to impulses he wouldn’t otherwise have given in to. “Sorry to disappoint you,” Adam told Kelly in silky tones. “But I prefer rabbits. Humans taste like pork.” And then he smiled. Kelly took an involuntary step backward. Tony gave Adam a sharp look. “Let’s not make things worse, if we can help it, gentlemen.

It's you I love. I spent so much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, scabrous thing. But it is yours. You probably guessed as much. But just in case you didn't.

When Jordan was a baby he sat on top of me much as a fly rests on a hill of dung. And I nourished him as a hill of dung nourishes a fly, and when he had eaten his fill he left me. Jordan... I should have named him after a stagnant pond and then I could have kept him, but I named him after a river and in the flood-tide he slipped away.

I’m new to the area. I could get lost. Next thing you know, I’m half-starved, and in my weakened condition, I could be eaten by wild, rabid bunnies.” “Bunnies?” I hadn’t wanted to laugh but did anyway. “Of all the animals, you go with bunnies?” “Have you ever looked in a bunny’s eyes, Libs? They’re just waiting for their chance to dominate. Why do you think they’re always so twitchy?” “Because they’re freaked something’s going to eat them for dinner?” “Nope. They’re plotting. It’s just a matter of time before they make their move. Mark my words.

a spider and a fly i heard a spider and a fly arguing wait said the fly do not eat me i serve a great purpose in the world you will have to show me said the spider i scurry around gutters and sewers and garbage cans said the fly and gather up the germs of typhoid influenza and pneumonia on my feet and wings then i carry these germs into households of men and give them diseases all the people who have lived the right sort of life recover from the diseases and the old soaks who have weakened their systems with liquor and iniquity succumb it is my mission to help rid the world of these wicked persons i am a vessel of righteousness scattering seeds of justice and serving the noblest uses it is true said the spider that you are more useful in a plodding material sort of way than i am but i do not serve the utilitarian deities i serve the gods of beauty look at the gossamer webs i weave they float in the sun like filaments of song if you get what i mean i do not work at anything i play all the time i am busy with the stuff of enchantment and the materials of fairyland my works transcend utility i am the artist a creator and demi god it is ridiculous to suppose that i should be denied the food i need in order to continue to create beauty i tell you plainly mister fly it is all damned nonsense for that food to rear up on its hind legs and say it should not be eaten you have convinced me said the fly say no more and shutting all his eyes he prepared himself for dinner and yet he said i could have made out a case for myself too if i had had a better line of talk of course you could said the spider clutching a sirloin from him but the end would have been just the same if neither of us had spoken at all boss i am afraid that what the spider said is true and it gives me to think furiously upon the futility of literature archy

He, too, was in the grip of rage and rhetoric. I saw that, attractive though his side of the political spectrum was. A cancerous violence had eaten into every political idea, had taken over the ideas themselves, and for so many, all that mattered was the willingness to do something. Action led to action, free of any moorings, and the way to be someone, the way to catch the attention of the young and recruit them to one's cause, was to be enraged. It seemed as if the only way this lure of violence could be avoided was by having no causes, by being magnificiently isolated from loyalties. But was that not an ethical lapse graver than rage itself?

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours

Where's your home, then?" asked the Snork Maiden. "Nowhere" said Snufkin a little sadly, "or everywhere. It depends on how you look at it." "Haven't you got a mother?" asked Moomintroll, looking very sorry for him. "I don't know," said Snufkin. "They tell me I was found in a basket." "Like Moses," said Sniff. "I like the story about Moses," said the Snork. "But I think his mother could have found a better way of saving him, don't you? The crocodiles might have eaten him up." "They nearly ate us up," said Sniff.

Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling began to affect the netting under which the three children lay. It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallic sound, as if claws and teeth were gnawing at the copper wire. This was accompanied by all sorts of little piercing cries. The little five-year-old boy, on hearing this hubbub overhead, and chilled with terror, jogged his brother's elbow; but the elder brother had already shut his peepers, as Gavroche had ordered. Then the little one, who could no longer control his terror, questioned Gavroche, but in a very low tone, and with bated breath:-- "Sir?" "Hey?" said Gavroche, who had just closed his eyes. "What is that?" "It's the rats," replied Gavroche. And he laid his head down on the mat again. The rats, in fact, who swarmed by thousands in the carcass of the elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good story-teller Perrault calls "fresh meat," they had hurled themselves in throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce this new-fangled trap. Still the little one could not sleep. "Sir?" he began again. "Hey?" said Gavroche. "What are rats?" "They are mice." This explanation reassured the child a little. He had seen white mice in the course of his life, and he was not afraid of them. Nevertheless, he lifted up his voice once more. "Sir?" "Hey?" said Gavroche again. "Why don't you have a cat?" "I did have one," replied Gavroche, "I brought one here, but they ate her." This second explanation undid the work of the first, and the little fellow began to tremble again. The dialogue between him and Gavroche began again for the fourth time:-- "Monsieur?" "Hey?" "Who was it that was eaten?" "The cat." "And who ate the cat?" "The rats." "The mice?" "Yes, the rats." The child, in consternation, dismayed at the thought of mice which ate cats, pursued:-- "Sir, would those mice eat us?" "Wouldn't they just!" ejaculated Gavroche. The child's terror had reached its climax. But Gavroche added:-- "Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!

It's so weird that adults in committed relationships have a problem with something so innocuous as flirting. I would never expect you to walk around with a paper bag over your head to avoid catching the eye of a stranger, nor would I discourage you making friendly conversation with whomever you might encounter during the day. And if you needed to fuck somebody else, we could talk about it. People change, our desires evolve, and it feels foolish to me to expect what you'll want two, five, or ten years from now will be exactly the same thing that fills you up today. I mean, the way I feel about fidelity has evolved over the last ten years of my life. It's a hard-and-fast rule that we don't apply to any other thing in our lives: YOU MUST LOVE THIS [SHOW/BOOK/FOOD/SHIRT] WITH UNWAVERING FERVOR FOR THE REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE. Could you imagine being forced to listen to your favorite record from before your music tastes were refined for the rest of your life? Right now I'm pretty sure I could listen to Midnight Snack by HOMESHAKE for the rest of my life, but me ten years ago was really into acoustic Dave Matthews, and I'm not sure how I feel about that today. And yes, I am oversimplifying it, but really, if in seven years you want to have sex with the proverbial milkman, just let me know about it beforehand so I can hide my LaCroix and half eaten wedge of port salut. ('Milkmen' always eat all the good snacks.)

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all. The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false. The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing -- art as I called it -- were no longer sweet to me. "Family"... said I to myself. But my family -- wife and children -- are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.

He looked like a fairy,' she told me. 'And it was a pity, because I could have buttered him and eaten him alive.

Never have I know spirits so low they could not be raised by hearing of a Frenchman eaten by a shark!

I often wondered how it would be to tramp off into the mountains and keep going until I was exhausted, then simply sink into the snow and fall asleep. Then the wolves could have me. To want to die in the forest and be eaten by wolves: another marker of incipient madness.

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at al. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

Maybe I wanted to be crushed, too. To be ready you need to be tired, and you need to have seen a great deal, or what you consider to have been a great deal- we all have such different capacities, are able to absorb and sustain vastly different quantities of visions and pain- and at that moment I started thinking that I had seen enough, that in general I'd had my fill and that in terms of visual stimulation the week thus far has shown me enough and that I was sated. The rock-running in Senegal was enough, the kids and their bonjours- that alone would prepare me for the end; if I couldn't be thankful enough having been there I was sick and ungrateful, and I would not be ungrateful, not ever, I would always know the gifts given me, I would count them and keep them safe! I had had so much so I would be able to face the knife in the alley and accept it all, smiling serenely, thankful that I'd be taken while riding the very crest of everything. I had been on a plane! A tiny percentage of all those who'd ever lived would ever be on an airplane- and had seen Africa rushing at me like something alive and furious. I could be taken and eaten by these wet alleyways without protest.

For dinner Jade microwaves some Stars-n-Flags. They're addictive. They put sugar in the sauce and sugar in the meat nuggets. I think also caffeine. Someone told me the brown streaks in the Flags are caffeine. We have like five bowls each. After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half hour computer simulation of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while he's wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher.

How wonderful it would be, frankly, if everybody in the world would suddenly lose his sight or forget the existence of light. Immediately, there would be agreement about form. Everybody would accept the fact that a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread whether triangular or round. The girl a little while ago would have kept her eyes shut and listened to my voice. If she had, perhaps we could have become friendly and I could have taken her to the playground and we could have eaten ice cream together. Just because there was light, she heedlessly thought that a triangular loaf of bread was not bread but a triangle. This thing called light is itself transparent, but it apparently changes into something nontransparent.

There are a few very goods meals I remember and there are a few truly terrible meals I remember. But most of the meals I’ve eaten, thousands upon thousands, were utterly unremarkable. If you asked me what I ate for lunch three weeks ago on Monday, I could not tell you. And yet that average, forgettable meal nourished me. Thousands of forgotten meals have brought me to today. They’ve sustained my life. They were my daily bread. We are endlessly in need of nourishment, and nourishment comes, usually, like taco soup. Abundant and overlooked

Aquinas wondered what would happen if God wanted to achieve universal resurrection. In other words, bringing everybody who had ever lived back to life at the same time. What would happen to cannibals, and the people they ate? You couldn't bring them all back at the same time, because the cannibals are made of the people they have eaten. You could have one but not the other. Ha.' I looked at Rowan. 'That's a good example of a paradox.

I can tell you that these two statues are not monkeys native to India. This one’s a spider monkey. They come from South America. This one is a chimpanzee, which is technically an ape, not a monkey. They’re often classified as monkeys because of their size.” I gaped at him. “How do you know so much about monkeys?” He crossed him arms over his chest. “Ah, so am I to assume that talking about monkeys is an approved topic of conversation? Perhaps if I were a monkey instead of a tiger you might clue me in as to why you’re avoiding me.” “I’m not avoiding you. I just need some space. It has nothing to do with your species. It has to do with other things.” “What other things?” “Nothing.” “It’s something.” “It can’t be anything.” “What can’t be anything?” “Can we just get back to the monkeys?” I yelled. “Fine!” he hollered back. We stood there glaring at each other for a minute, both of us frustrated and angry. He went back to examining the various monkeys and ticking off a list of their traits. Before I could stop myself, I shot off a sarcastic, “I had no idea that I was walking with a monkey expert, but, then again, you have eaten them right? So I guess that would be the difference between say, pork and chicken, to someone like me.” Ren scowled at me. “I lived in zoos and circuses for centuries, remember? And I don’t…eat…monkeys!

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright-- And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done-- "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!" The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying over head-- There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: "If this were only cleared away," They said, "it WOULD be grand!" "If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That they could get it clear?" "I doubt it," said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. "O Oysters, come and walk with us!" The Walrus did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each." The eldest Oyster looked at him. But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head-- Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat-- And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more-- All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings." "But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!" "No hurry!" said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed-- Now if you're ready Oysters dear, We can begin to feed." "But not on us!" the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue, "After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!" "The night is fine," the Walrus said "Do you admire the view? "It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!" The Carpenter said nothing but "Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf-- I've had to ask you twice!" "It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The butter's spread too thick!" "I weep for you," the Walrus said. "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size. Holding his pocket handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. "O Oysters," said the Carpenter. "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?" But answer came there none-- And that was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

I have indeed lived and worked to my taste either in art or science. What more could a man desire? Knowledge has always been my goal. There is much that I shall leave behind undone…but something at least I was privileged to leave for the world to use, if it so intends…As the Latin poet said I will leave the table of the living like a guest who has eaten his fill. Yes, if I had another life to spend, I certainly would not waste it. But that cannot be, so why complain?

--How I Was Visited By Messengers-- Something clicked in the clock on the wall, and I was visited by messengers. at first, I did not realize that I was visited by messengers. instead, I thought that something was wrong with the clock. but then I saw that the clock worked just fine, and probably told the correct time. then I noticed that there was a draft in the room. and then it shocked me: what kind of thing could, at the same time, cause a clock to click and a draft to start in the room? I sat down on a chair next to the divan and looked at the clock, thinking about that. the big hand was on the number nine, and the little one on the four, therefore, it was a quarter till four. there was a calendar on the wall below the clock, and its leafs were flipping, as if there was a strong wind in my room. my heart was beating very fast and I was so scared it almost made me collapse. "i should have some water," I said. on the table next to me was a pitcher with water. I reached out and took the pitcher. "water should help," I said and looked at the water. it was then that I realized that I had been visited by messengers, and that I could not tell them apart from the water. I was scared to drink the water, because I could, by accident, drink a messenger. what does that mean? nothing. one can only drink liquids. could the messengers be liquid? no. then, I can drink the water, there is nothing to be afraid of. but I couldn't find the water. I walked around the room and looked for the water. I tried putting a belt in my mouth, but it was not the water. I put the calendar in my mouth -- that also was not the water. I gave up looking for the water and started to look for the messengers. but how could I find them? what do they look like? I remembered that I could not distinguish them from the water, therefore, they must look like water. but what does water look like? I was standing and thinking. I do not know for how long I stood and thought, but suddenly I came to. "there is the water," I thought. but that wasn't the water and instead I got an itch in my ear. I looked under the cupboard and under the bed, hoping that there I might find the water or the messengers. but under the cupboard, in a pile of dust, I found a little ball, half eaten by a dog, and under the bed I found some pieces of glass. under the chair I found a half-eaten steak, I ate it and it made me feel better. it wasn't drafty anymore, the clock was ticking steadily, telling the time: a quarter till four. "well, this means the messengers are gone," I said quietly and started to get dressed, since I had a visit to make. -August 22, 1937

she started asking me all kinds of personal questions – how many girls had I slept with? Where I was from? Which university did I go to? What kind of music did I like? Had I ever read any novels by Osamu Dazai? Where would I like to go if I could travel abroad? Did I think her nipples were too big? I made up some answers and went to sleep, but next morning she said she wanted to have breakfast with me, and she kept up the stream of questions over the tasteless eggs and toast and coffee. What kind of work did my father do? Did I get good marks at school? What month was I born? Had I ever eaten frogs? She was giving me a headache, so as soon as we had finished eating I said I had to go to work. . .

I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing.

Everything Six eats is only eaten to compliment her main course of Nutella. Tonight, she’s having a cheese and Nutella sandwich. I don’t know if I could ever acquire a taste for that.

My doggy ate my homework. He chewed it up," I said. But when I offered my excuse My teacher shook her head. I saw this wasn't going well. I didn't want to fail. Before she had a chance to talk, I added to the tale: "Before he ate, he took my work And tossed it in a pot. He simmered it with succotash Till it was piping hot. "He scrambled up my science notes With eggs and bacon strips, Along with sautéed spelling words And baked potato chips. "He then took my arithmetic And had it gently fried. He broiled both my book reports With pickles on the side. "He wore a doggy apron As he cooked a notebook stew. He barked when I objected. There was nothing I could do." "Did he wear a doggy chef hat?" My teacher gave a scowl. "He did," I said. "And taking it Would only make him growl." My teacher frowned, but then I said As quickly as I could, "He covered it with ketchup, And he said it tasted good." "A talking dog who likes to cook?" My teacher had a fit. She sent me to the office, And that is where I sit. I guess I made a big mistake In telling her all that. 'Cause I don't have a doggy. It was eaten by my cat.

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

I spent so much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have on at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it’s yours.

I wondered if you thought we were lost. We weren´t lost. We were loss. And meanwhile, all i could think about was the innumerable ways I would´ve loved to have eaten you. How being devoured can make one cry.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all likely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stopped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman

Ruby: I’ve decided. I’m putting my Gary on a diet. Rosie: You’re putting him on a diet? How on earth can you control what your twenty-one-year-old son eats? Ruby: Oh it’s easy; I’ll just nail down everything to the floor. Rosie: So what kind of diet is it? Ruby: I don’t know. I bought a magazine, but there are so many stupid diets out there I don’t know which one to pick. Remember that ridiculous one that you and I did last year? The alphabet one where we had to eat foods beginning with a certain letter every day? Rosie: Oh yeah! How long did we do that for?! Ruby: Em . . . that would be 26 days of course Rosie Rosie: Oh . . . right . . . of course. You put on weight on the third day. Ruby: That’s because the third day was the lucky letter “C” . . . Cakes . . . mmmm Rosie: Well we made up for it on the last day. I was bloody starving on “Z” day; I was practically chasing zebras with a kitchen knife around the zoo. Could have eaten the zoo I suppose . . . Ruby: You should have done what I did, I ate like a queen. I became German for the day and ate “ze cakes” and “ze buns.” Oh I don’t know Rosie. I think I’ll just invent a diet of my own and give those stupid magazines a run for their money

It’s you I love. I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so we’ll that I could behave as though I didn’t have one. Even now, it’s a shabby, worm eaten, and scabrous thing. But it’s yours… you probably guessed as much… but just incase you didn’t

Frowning, she warmed up the scone she’d saved for Callum. “I could get a pop-up camper to pull behind my truck. When I get a truck, of course. That way, I could move my house every few days and experience different views.” “You’re not living in a camper.” He bit into the scone and chewed angrily. “Excuse me.” The female half of the eavesdropping couple took a step closer to the counter. “Are there any more of those scones?” Lou pasted a regretful smile on her face. “Sorry, no. This was the last one.” “I didn’t see it in the display.” The woman scowled. “I specifically asked if you had any scones, and you said you were out.” “I had to hold this one back. It was defective.” “Defective?” Her eyes darted between Lou’s expression of fake sympathy and the small bite of scone Callum hadn’t eaten yet. “It looked fine.” “I licked it.” Lou heard Callum choke on the last piece of scone, but she couldn’t look at him or she would start laughing. If his airway was blocked, he was going to have to give himself the Heimlich. The woman’s suspicious expression didn’t ease. “Why did you let him eat it then?” “Oh, his tongue is in my mouth all the time,” Lou said sweetly, and Callum’s coughing increased. “I didn’t think he’d mind my germs.” With a sound of frustration, the woman stormed out of the shop, followed closely by the male half of the couple. The bells rang merrily as the door closed behind them, as if celebrating their absence. “Sparks,” Callum rasped once his coughing died down. “You’re going to kill me.” “But what a way to go.” “True.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled her closer and leaned across the counter. “Now give me some of those germs.

Here, Kells. I brought you something,” he said unassumingly and held out three mangos. “Thanks. Um, dare I ask where you got them?” “Monkeys.” I stopped in mid-brush. “Monkeys? What do you mean monkeys?” “Well, monkeys don’t like tigers because tigers eat monkeys. So, when a tiger comes around, they jump up in the trees and pummel the tiger with fruit or feces. Lucky for me today they threw fruit.” I gulped. “Have you ever…eaten a monkey?” Ren grinned at me. “Well, a tiger does have to eat.” I dug a rubber band out of the backpack so I could braid my hair. “Ugh, that’s disgusting.” He laughed. “I didn’t really eat a monkey, Kells. I’m just teasing you. Monkeys are repellant. They taste like meaty tennis balls and they smell like feet.” He paused. “Now a nice juicy deer, that is delectable.” He smacked his lips together in an exaggerated way. “I don’t think I really need to hear about your hunting.” “Really? I quite enjoy hunting.” Ren froze into place. Then, almost imperceptibly, he lowered his body slowly to a crouch and balanced on the balls of his feet. He placed a hand in the grass in front of him and began to creep closer to me. He was tracking me, hunting me. His eyes locked on mine and pinned me to the spot where I was standing. He was preparing to spring. His lips were pulled back in a wide grin, which showed his brilliant white teeth. He looked…feral. He spoke in a silky, mesmerizing voice. “When you’re stalking your prey, you must freeze in place and hide, remaining that way for a long time. If you fail, your prey eludes you.” He closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. Even though I’d been watching him closely, I was startled at how fast he could move. My pulse started thumping wildly at my throat, which was where his lips now hovered as if he were going for my jugular. He brushed my hair back and moved up to my ear, whispering, “And you will go…hungry.” His words were hushed. His warm breath tickled my ear and made goose bumps fan out over my body. I turned my head slightly to look at him. His eyes had changed. They were a brighter blue than normal and were studying my face. His hand was still in my hair, and his eyes drifted down to my mouth. I suddenly had the distinct impression that this was what it felt like to be a deer. Ren was making my nervous. I blinked and swallowed dryly. His eyes darted back up to mine again. He must have sensed my apprehension because his expression changed. He removed his hand from my hair and relaxed his posture. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Kelsey. It won’t happen again.” When he took a step back, I started breathing again. I said shakily, “Well, I don’t want to hear any more about hunting. It freaks me out. The least you could do is not tell me about it. Especially when I have to spend time with you outdoors, okay?” He laughed. “kells, we all have some animalistic tendencies. I loved hunting, even when I was young.” I shuddered. “Fine. Just keep your animalistic tendencies to yourself.” He leaned toward me again and pulled on a strand of my hair. “Now, Kells, there are some of my animalistic tendencies that you seem to like.” He started making a rumbling sound in his chest, and I realized that he was purring. “Stop that!” I sputtered. He laughed, walked over to the backpack, and picked up the fruit. “So, do you want any of this mango or not? I’ll wash it for you.” “Well, considering you carried it in your mouth all that way just for me. And taking into account the source of said fruit. Not really.” His shoulders fell, and I hurried to add, “But I guess I could eat some of the inside.” He looked up at me and smiled. “It’s not freeze-dried.” “Okay. I’ll try some.

What we would think of as a beef animal had the double purpose of being a working or draught animal that could pull heavy loads. There is an old adage, "A year to grow, two years to plough and a year to fatten." The beef medieval people would have eaten would have been a maturer, denser meat than we are used to today. I have always longed to try it. The muscle acquired from a working ox would have broken down over the fattening year and provided wonderful fat covering and marbling. Given the amount of brewing that took place, the odds are that the animals would have been fed a little drained mash from time to time. Kobe beef, that excessively expensive Japanese beef, was originally obtained from ex-plough animals whose muscles were broken down by mash from sake production and by massage. I'd like to think our beef might have had a not dissimilar flavour.

I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her—green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs—would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe ‘the afterlife’ is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled. But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska’s genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirely. There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself—those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, ‘Teenagers think they are invincible’ with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

I turned around to examine the rest of my temporary prison, and saw an enormous golden eye staring at me, less than ten feet away from where I stood. I did what any sensible witch would do in my circumstance. I screamed like a scared little girl. The eye blinked. Once, twice, and then shifted as the dragon turned its head toward me, regarding me with both golden eyes. “I could have eaten you, you know.” I nodded numbly and stammered, “Thank you for not doing that.” I knew dragons existed in Faerie, though I’d never seen one before. Dragons are reclusive as a rule and tend to guard their privacy ferociously, so only the overly brave or overly stupid seek them out on purpose. The creature was huge, taking up a good portion of the room with its bulk. Black scales covered its body, and leathery wings were folded against its back. Smoke puffed out of its nostrils for a moment, and my stomach leapt in panic. “I only eat virgins though.” I stared at the dragon in disbelief, feeling the inexplicable urge to defend my past sexual history. My mouth worked as I struggled to find an appropriate response, and I thought I saw a glint of humor in its golden gaze.

She ran into Dmitri during her search. Dressed in a slick black-on-black suit, his hair brushed perfectly, he just raised an eyebrow when he saw her. Elena pointed the half-eaten chocolate bar at him. “Mess with me and I will shoot you through the heart, I swear to God. I am so far past hangry, I’m homicidal.” A twitch of his lips. “Have you tried drinking blood?” Elena nearly pulled out her crossbow and carried through on her threat—the asshole was powerful, would survive it—then she realized he was serious. “Blood?” “Archangelic blood in particular. Violent amount of energy in it.” Finishing off the chocolate bar, Elena considered it. “I’m not a vampire. Would it even work?” Forget about the actual drinking blood part of it; if it would stop the hunger gnawing at her from the inside out, she’d pinch her nose closed and throw it back like medicine. Dmitri shrugged. “What have you got to lose?” “I’ll talk to Raphael.” Walking past, she said, “Sometimes, I can almost believe you might once have been human.” “Clearly, I need to up my game.” A hint of fur and champagne wrapped around her, sensual and caressing and mocking. “Argh!” Swiveling, she had the crossbow in her hand and was shooting the bolt before she could think about it. Dmitri moved . . . and the crossbow bolt thudded home in the wall behind him. “Destroying Tower property again.” A headshake followed those censorious words. “‘Don’t get involved with the white-haired accident-on-legs,’ I said to Raphael, but did he listen?” “Give me back my bolt you scent-infested-excuse-for-a-vampire.

Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit at a table. And don't ask me what the table was like because this was some time ago and I can't remember. It was probably round." [...] "So let me give you the layout. Me sitting at the table, on my left, the newspaper, on my right, the cup of coffee, in the middle of the table, the packet of biscuits." "I see it perfectly." "What you don't see," said Arthur, "because I haven't mentioned him yet, is the guy sitting at the table already. He is sitting there opposite me." "What's he like?" "Perfectly ordinary. Briefcase. Business suit. He didn't look," said Arthur, "as if he was about to do anything weird." "Ah. I know the type. What did he do?" "He did this. He leaned across the table, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and . . ." "What?" "Ate it." "What?" "He ate it." Fenchurch looked at him in astonishment. "What on earth did you do?" "Well, in the circumstances I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do. I was compelled," said Arthur, "to ignore it." "What? Why?" "Well, it's not the sort of thing you're trained for, is it? I searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere in my upbringing, experience, or even primal instincts to tell me how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits." "Well, you could. . ." Fenchurch thought about it. "I must say I'm not sure what I would have done either. So what happened?" "I stared furiously at the crossword," said Arthur, "couldn't do a single clue, took a sip of coffee, it was too hot to drink, so there was nothing for it. I braced myself. I took a biscuit, trying very hard not to notice," he added, "that the packet was already mysteriously open. . ." "But you're fighting back, taking a tough line." "After my fashion, yes. I ate the biscuit. I ate it very deliberately and visibly, so that he would have no doubt as to what it was I was doing. When I eat a biscuit," said Arthur, "it stays eaten." "So what did he do?" "Took another one. Honestly," insisted Arthur, "this is exactly what happened. He took another biscuit, he ate it. Clear as daylight. Certain as we are sitting on the ground." Fenchurch stirred uncomfortably. "And the problem was," said Arthur, "that having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around. What do you say? 'Excuse me... I couldn't help noticing, er . . .' Doesn't work. No, I ignored it with, if anything, even more vigor than previously." "My man..." "Stared at the crossword again, still couldn't budge a bit of it, so showing some of the spirit that Henry V did on St. Crispin's Day . ." "What?" "I went into the breach again. I took," said Arthur, "another biscuit. And for an instant our eyes met." "Like this?" "Yes, well, no, not quite like that. But they met. Just for an instant. And we both looked away. But I am here to tell you," said Arthur, "that there was a little electricity in the air. There was a little tension building up over the table. At about this time." "I can imagine."” "We went through the whole packet like this. Him, me, him, me . . ." "The whole packet?" "Well, it was only eight biscuits, but it seemed like a lifetime of biscuits we were getting through at this point. Gladiators could hardly have had a tougher time." "Gladiators," said Fenchurch, "would have had to do it in the sun. More physically gruelling." "There is that. So. When the empty packet was lying dead between us the man at last got up, having done his worst, and left. I heaved a sigh of relief, of course. "As it happened, my train was announced a moment or two later, so I finished my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper . . ." "Yes?" "Were my biscuits." "What?" said Fenchurch. "What?" "True." "No!

I have never before considered the feelings of a cow. I suppose they must not care for us at all.’ ‘They are only dumb beasts,’ Laurence said, ‘and such thought surely beyond them. Any animal will defend its life and young, but that is not the same as being a thinking, reasoning creature.’ ‘Only, how could one be certain?’ Temeraire said. ‘After all, if one wishes to be particularly dull, one might be like that fellow Salcombe, and say that dragons are also dumb beasts. And I am quite sure the bunyips are not, though they do not seem to talk at all: they are only nasty thinking creatures. It is not very fair, though, that I should allow them to have sense because they will contrive one unpleasantness after another; what if cows are very clever, only they do not like to make a fuss about it?’ ‘If they dislike fuss enough to tolerate being eaten,’ Laurence said, with rather an amused expression, ‘surely it need not matter one way or another.’ ‘Perhaps they think they will be eaten anyway, as they are so delicious,

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

I’ll get some more firewood,” I said, turning away from the fire. “What we have won’t last the night.” “Best do that, I think,” Kith said. “Wandel and I’ll see about dinner.” “I thought the woman should do the cooking,” said Wandel, teasing but still half-serious. He hadn’t eaten what I could cook over an open fire. “We’ll cook,” replied Kith, who had.

When I have slain an enemy,” explained a Brazilian philosopher-chief, “it is surely better to eat him than to let him waste.. . . The worst is not to be eaten, but to die; if I am killed it is all the same whether my tribal enemy eats me or not. But I could not think of any game that would taste better than he would. . . . You whites are really too dainty.

Hungry?” he asks. “The wager?” I remind him. “I’m getting there—it’s related to my question.” He lifts his chin to the meat locker. “They have good steaks here.” And just like that, I’m interested in whatever he’s suggesting. “They do. What’re you thinking?” “They have a porterhouse for two, three, or four.” I haven’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and the idea of a big juicy steak has me salivating. “Yeah?” “So, I say we split the one for three, and whoever eats more wins.” “I’m going to guess their porterhouse for three could feed us both for a week.” “I’m betting you’re right.” His adorable grin should be accompanied by the sound of a silvery ding. “And your dinner is on me.” For not the first time, it occurs to me to ask him how he makes ends meet, but I can’t—not here, and maybe not when we’re alone, either. “You don’t have to do that.” “I think I can handle treating my wife to dinner on our wedding night.” Our wedding night. My heart thuds heavily. “That’s a lot of meat. No pun intended.” He grins enthusiastically. “I’d sure like to see how you handle it.” “You’re betting Holland can’t finish a steak?” Lulu chimes in from behind me. “Oh, you sweet summer child.” *** As we get up, I groan, clutching my stomach. “Is this what pregnancy feels like? Not interested.” “I could carry you,” Calvin offers sweetly, helping me with my coat. Lulu pushes between us, giddy from wine as she throws her arms around our shoulders. “You’re supposed to carry the bride across the threshold to be romantic, not because she’s broken from eating her weight in beef.” I stifle a belch. “The way to impress a man is to show him how much meat you can handle, don’t you know this, Lu?” Calvin laughs. “It was a close battle.” “Not that close,” Mark says, beside him. We went so far as to have the waiter split the cooked steak into two equal portions, much to the amused fascination of our tablemates. I ate roughly three-quarters of mine. Calvin was two ounces short. “Calvin Bakker has a pretty solid ring to it,” I say. He laugh-groans. “What did I get myself into?” “A marriage to a farm girl,” I say. “It’s best you learn on day one that I take my eating very seriously.

I am in my old room once more, for a little, and I am caught in musing - - how life is a swift motion, a continuous flowing, changing, and how one is always saying goodbye and going places, seeing people, doing things. Only in the rain, sometimes, only when the rain comes, closing in your pitifully small radius of activity, only when you sit and listen by the window, as the cold wet air blows thinly by the back of your neck - only then do you think and feel sick. You feel the days slipping by, elusive as slippery pink worms, through your fingers, and you wonder what you have for your eighteen years, and you think about how, with difficulty and concentration, you could bring back a day, a day of sun, blue skies and watercoloring by the sea. You could remember the sensual observations that made that day reality, and you could delude yourself into thinking - almost - that you could return to the past, and relive the days and hours in a quick space of time. But no, the quest of time past is more difficult than you think, and time present is eaten up by such plaintive searchings. The film of your days and nights is wound up tight in you, never to be re-run - and the occasional flashbacks are faint, blurred, unreal, as if seen through falling snow. Now, you begin to get scared. You don't believe in God, or a life-after-death, so you can't hope for sugar plums when your non-existent soul rises. You believe that whatever there is has got to come from man, and man is pretty creative in his good moments - pretty mature, pretty perceptive for his age - how many years is it, now? How many thousands? Yet, yet in this era of specialization, of infinite variety and complexity and myriad choices, what do you pick for yourself out of the grab-bag? Cats have nine lives, the saying goes. You have one; and somewhere along the thin, tenuous thread of your existence there is the black knot, the blood clot, the stopped heartbeat that spells the end of this particular individual which is spelled "I" and "You" and "Sylvia." So you wonder how to act, and how to be - and you wonder about values and attitudes. In the relativism and despair, in the waiting for the bombs to begin, for the blood (now spurting in Korea, in Germany, in Russia) to flow and trickle before your own eyes, you wonder with a quick sick fear how to cling to earth, to the seeds of grass and life. You wonder about your eighteen years, ricocheting between a stubborn determination that you've done well for your own capabilities and opportunities... that you're competing now with girls from all over America, and not just from the hometown: and a fear that you haven't done well enough - You wonder if you've got what it takes to keep building up obstacle courses for your self, and to keep leaping through them, sprained ankle or not. Again the refrain, what have you for your eighteen years? And you know that whatever tangible things you do have, they cannot be held, but, too, will decompose and slip away through your coarse-skinned and death-rigid fingers. So you will rot in the ground, and so you say, what the hell? Who cares? But you care, and somehow you don't want to live just one life, which could be typed, which could be tossed off in a thumbnail sketch = "She was the sort of girl.... And end in 25 words or less.

It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t

I just walked ten miles in the pitch dark for you. I could get eaten by a bear. I WOULD get eaten by a bear for you. Voluntarily. My lips are softening. Little fizzes are going off in my chest like sparklers. I bought all your pictures like a stalker but I don’t care and you can’t have them back. There are dots, but I interrupt them. Why? He replies immediately. You know why.

You look exhausted,” she said. “Everyone else has already eaten their dinner, but I’m sure you’re hungry too.” I shrugged. “I just want to be alone. Maybe I’ll take a walk through the gardens.” As I started out the door, Aurelia said, “I want to be alone too. Do you think you and I could be alone together?” My heart skipped a beat, and I looked around us again, not sure of whether I wanted this moment to be interrupted. “That’s not a good idea.” She sighed. “I’m going to come with you, Nic. It’s only a question of whether I’ll walk beside you or behind you. I warn you, though, if I must follow, then I’m going to throw rocks at the back of your head.” “Well, we can’t have that.” I smiled, then motioned for her to come with me. “Let’s go be alone together.

Jack Aubrey pushed back his chair, loosened his waistcoat, and said, 'I had no idea I was so hungry: I am afraid I must have eaten like an ogre.' Killick could be seen to smile: Jack's appetite always pleased him - his one deviation into amiability. 'Oh come,' said Maturin. 'Six mutton chops is not at all excessive in a man of your weight: an abstemious ogre would call it moderation.

So what are you after, eh? Side of beef? Some chops?' 'Aye, sir. Whatever you fancy.' He licked his lips and listed his favorite dishes: plain pudding, lemon pickle, roast beef. Then he asked for his own particulars: tobacco and coltsfoot for his pipe, and some more comfrey for Her Ladyship's tea. 'And no green oils. Get a block of dripping and cook it plain.' It was true that the food in France had been a great hog potch of good and bad. One night on the road we were served a right mess of giblets, fishy smelling frogs' legs and moldy old cheese. But at Chantilly the fricassee of veal was so tender I'm not sure how they softened it. I could have eaten the whole pot it was that good, but instead had to watch Jesmire scraping off the sauce, whining all the time for a little boiled ham.

She had finished her sandwich, but mine was still wrapped in the white paper: tuna with lettuce and tomato on rye bread. I was hungry, having eaten my bowl of oatmeal (105) and green apple (53) hours before, but I was worried about the sandwich. It felt like a brick in my hand. The tuna was loaded with mayonnaise and the whole thing could have easily been packed with five hundred, even six hundred, calories.

Make cabbage illegal (anyone caught growing, cooking, or eating cabbage will be sent straight to prison). Make ice-cream free (duh!) Make it the law that bread must be baked without crusts. Ban school. (This could be going too far. I might decide that school can be taught on Wednesdays. Wednesday mornings. I’ll think about it.) Make the 25th of every month Christmas Day (or just Lots of Presents for Kids Day if you don’t do Christmas). Make it the law that parents have to take kids to Disneyland at least twice a year, (more if they want to). Order all the scientists to work out why you can’t tickle yourself and what the purpose of snot is. Make showering optional. For me. If I decide that you stink, then you must shower. Change dinner time around so that dessert has to be eaten first. Ban all lumps from yoghurt.

He couldn't have eaten that horrid soup!" "He did,and he even pretended to like it." "Pretended?" "No one could have liked that meal." She wrinkled her nose. "Mary was mortified." "Mary can be mortified all she wishes; we can't have MacLean da-" Sophia slipped the spoon into his mouth and dumped the contents. Red choked, his face contorting, and he looked around wildly. "Do not spit that out." He glared at her, and after what appeared and sounded like a heroic effort, he swallowed the laudanum. "Blech! There! I hope ye're happy!" He grabbed up a hand cloth and began rubbing his tongue vigorously. She calmly replaced the spoon and recorked the bottle. "As I was saying, MacLean swore that he liked every dish at dinner, even the turnips. They were so hard it almost broke my knife to cut one." "Hm.That's very odd,it is.

I myself, however, could never resist the temptation to read raisin paste for wine in the story of the Miracle of Cana. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made raisin paste ... he said unto the bridegroom, 'Every man doth at the beginning doth set forth good raisin paste, and when men have well drunk [eaten? the text is no doubt corrupt], then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good raisin paste until now.

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

I cut an orange from the branch so that I could taste Palestine, but Umm Hassan yelled, “No! It’s not for eating, it’s Palestine.” I was ashamed of myself and hung the branch on the wall of the sitting room in my house, and when you came to visit me and saw the mouldy fruit, you yelled, “What’s that smell?” And I told you the story and watched you explode in anger. “You should have eaten the oranges,” you told me. “But Umm Hassan stopped me and said they were from the homeland.” “Umm Hassan’s senile,” you answered. “You should have eaten the oranges, because the homeland is something we have to eat, not let it eat us. We have to eat the oranges of Palestine, and we have to eat Palestine and Galilee.” It came to me then that you were right, but the oranges were going bad. You went to the wall and pulled off the branch, and I took it from your hand and stood there confused, not knowing what to do with that bunch of decay. “What are you going to do?” you asked. “Bury it,” I said. “Why bury it?” you asked. “I’m not going to throw it away, because it’s from the homeland.” You took the branch and threw it in the rubbish. “What a scandal!” you said. “What are these old women’s superstitions? Before hanging the homeland up on the wall, it’d be better to knock down the wall and leave. We have to eat every orange in the world and not be afraid, because the homeland isn’t oranges. The homeland is us.

Tell me the story," said Fenchurch firmly. "You arrived at the station." "I was about twenty minutes early. I'd got the time of the train wrong." "Get on with it." Fenchurch laughed. "So I bought a newspaper, to do the crossword, and went to the buffet to get a cup of coffee." "You do the crossword?" "Yes." "Which one?" "The Guardian usually." "I think it tries to be too cute. I prefer The Times. Did you solve it?" "What?" "The crossword in the Guardian." "I haven't had a chance to look at it yet," said Arthur, "I'm still trying to buy the coffee." "All right then. Buy the coffee." "I'm buying it. I am also," said Arthur, "buying some biscuits." "What sort?" "Rich Tea." "Good Choice." "I like them. Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit at a table. And don't ask me what the table was like because this was some time ago and I can't remember. It was probably round." "All right." "So let me give you the layout. Me sitting at the table. On my left, the newspaper. On my right, the cup of coffee. In the middle of the table, the packet of biscuits." "I see it perfectly." "What you don't see," said Arthur, "because I haven't mentioned him yet, is the guy sitting at the table already. He is sitting there opposite me." "What's he look like?" "Perfectly ordinary. Briefcase. Business suit. He didn't look," said Arthur, "as if he was about to do anything weird." "Ah. I know the type. What did he do?" "He did this. He leaned across the table, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and..." "What?" "Ate it." "What?" "He ate it." Fenchurch looked at him in astonishment. "What on earth did you do?" "Well, in the circumstances I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do. I was compelled," said Arthur, "to ignore it." "What? Why?" "Well, it's not the sort of thing you're trained for is it? I searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere in my upbringing, experience or even primal instincts to tell me how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits." "Well, you could..." Fenchurch thought about it. "I must say I'm not sure what I would have done either. So what happened?" "I stared furiously at the crossword," said Arthur. "Couldn't do a single clue, took a sip of coffee, it was too hot to drink, so there was nothing for it. I braced myself. I took a biscuit, trying very hard not to notice," he added, "that the packet was already mysteriously open..." "But you're fighting back, taking a tough line." "After my fashion, yes. I ate a biscuit. I ate it very deliberately and visibly, so that he would have no doubt as to what it was I was doing. When I eat a biscuit," Arthur said, "it stays eaten." "So what did he do?" "Took another one. Honestly," insisted Arthur, "this is exactly what happened. He took another biscuit, he ate it. Clear as daylight. Certain as we are sitting on the ground." Fenchurch stirred uncomfortably. "And the problem was," said Arthur, "that having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject a second time around. What do you say? "Excuse me...I couldn't help noticing, er..." Doesn't work. No, I ignored it with, if anything, even more vigor than previously." "My man..." "Stared at the crossword, again, still couldn't budge a bit of it, so showing some of the spirit that Henry V did on St. Crispin's Day..." "What?" "I went into the breach again. I took," said Arthur, "another biscuit. And for an instant our eyes met." "Like this?" "Yes, well, no, not quite like that. But they met. Just for an instant. And we both looked away. But I am here to tell you," said Arthur, "that there was a little electricity in the air. There was a little tension building up over the table. At about this time." "I can imagine.

At times the differences concerned me. Could I ever be with a man who’d never, in his entire life, eaten sushi? Could I, a former vegetarian, conceivably spend the rest of my life with a man who ate red meat at every meal? I’d never thought about it before. And, most concerning, could I ever--in a million years--live so far out in the country that I’d have to traverse five miles of gravel road to reach my house? The Magic 8-Ball in my head revealed its answer: OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD.

. . . I bet I'm beginning to make some parents nervous - here I am, bragging of being a dropout, and unemployable, and about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want is for their children to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe also to assemble a tasteful fortune . . . But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to live it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are . . . I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, or whether you start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's . . . well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher; I should've stuck around. But I know that you feel best when you're not doing much - when you're in nature, when you're very quiet or, paradoxically, listening to music . . . We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of the needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see Spirit most brightly . . . In my twenties I devised a school of relaxation that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in the ensuing years - it was called Prone Yoga. You just lay around as much as possible. You could read, listen to music, you could space out or sleep. But you had to be lying down. Maintaining the prone. You've graduated. You have nothing left to prove, and besides, it's a fool's game. If you agree to play, you've already lost. It's Charlie Brown and Lucy, with the football. If you keep getting back on the field, they win. There are so many great things to do right now. Write. Sing. Rest. Eat cherries. Register voters. And - oh my God - I nearly forgot the most important thing: refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying! There is way too much lying and scolding going on politically right now without having your pants get in on the act, too. So bless you. You've done an amazing thing. And you are loved; you're capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It's what you are made of. And it's what you're here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another. And give thanks, like this: Thank you.

Tatiasha, my wife, I got cookies from you and Janie, anxious medical advice from Gordon Pasha (tell him you gave me a gallon of silver nitrate), some sharp sticks from Harry (nearly cried). I’m saddling up, I’m good to go. From you I got a letter that I could tell you wrote very late at night. It was filled with the sorts of things a wife of twenty-seven years should not write to her far-away and desperate husband, though this husband was glad and grateful to read and re-read them. Tom Richter saw the care package you sent with the preacher cookies and said, “Wow, man. You must still be doing something right.” I leveled a long look at him and said, “It’s good to know nothing’s changed in the army in twenty years.” Imagine what he might have said had he been privy to the fervent sentiments in your letter. No, I have not eaten any poison berries, or poison mushrooms, or poison anything. The U.S. Army feeds its men. Have you seen a C-ration? Franks and beans, beefsteak, crackers, fruit, cheese, peanut butter, coffee, cocoa, sacks of sugar(!). It’s enough to make a Soviet blockade girl cry. We’re going out on a little scoping mission early tomorrow morning. I’ll call when I come back. I tried to call you today, but the phone lines were jammed. It’s unbelievable. No wonder Ant only called once a year. I would’ve liked to hear your voice though: you know, one word from you before battle, that sort of thing . . . Preacher cookies, by the way, BIG success among war-weary soldiers. Say hi to the kids. Stop teaching Janie back flip dives. Do you remember what you’re supposed to do now? Kiss the palm of your hand and press it against your heart.   Alexander   P.S. I’m getting off the boat at Coconut Grove. It’s six and you’re not on the dock. I finish up, and start walking home, thinking you’re tied up making dinner, and then I see you and Ant hurrying down the promenade. He is running and you’re running after him. You’re wearing a yellow dress. He jumps on me, and you stop shyly, and I say to you, come on, tadpole, show me what you got, and you laugh and run and jump into my arms. Such a good memory. I love you, babe.

You still have to call the vet though when your cat has eaten a you consisting of a tinkle bell and a feather and a poof ball all tied together with twine. That actually happened once and it was really the worst because the vet told me that I'd have to ply the cat with laxatives to make the toy pass easily through and that I'd need to inspect the poop to make sure the toy passed because otherwise they'd have to do open-cat surgery. And when it finally did start to pass, but just the first part with the tinkle bell, and the cat freaked out because he was running away from the tinkle bell hanging out of his butthole and when I called the vet he said to definitely NOT pull on the twine because it could pull out his intestines, which would be the grossest pinata ever, and so I just ran after the cat with some scissors to cut off the tinkle bell (which, impressively, was still tinkling after seeing things no tinkle bell should ever see). Probably the cat was running away because of the tinkle bell and because I was chasing it with scissors screaming, "LET ME HELP YOU.

He pictured himself at the lake, on a houseboat. Dekka would be there, and Brianna and Jack. He would have friends. He wouldn’t be alone. But he couldn’t stop himself from looking for her. She no longer had Little Pete to worry about. They could be together without all of that. But of course he knew Astrid, and knew that right now, wherever she was, she was eaten up inside with guilt. “She’s not coming, is she?” Sam said to Dekka. But Dekka didn’t answer. She was somewhere else in her head. Sam saw her glance and look away as Brianna laid a light hand on Jack’s shoulder. Dahra was staying in the hospital, but a few more kids came. Groups of three or four at a time. The Siren and the kids she lived with came. John Terrafino came. Ellen. He waited. He would wait the full two hours. Not for her, he told himself, just to keep his word. Then Orc, with Howard. Sam groaned inwardly. “You gotta be kidding me,” Brianna said. “The deal was kids make a choice,” Sam said. “I think Howard just realized how dangerous life can be for a criminal living in a place where the ‘king’ can decide life or death.

The flavor that came to me was a luscious Suncrest peach that I once had in California. This heirloom variety needed time to ripen on the tree to achieve its peak flavor. Unlike other peaches that were picked unripe so they would ship more easily. Suncrest peaches had to be eaten right away. But they were worth it- fragrant, luscious, juice-dripping-down-your-chin perfection. The problem was that I didn't have any peach mousse or filling. But I quickly improvised. "You're getting married in August, when peaches are in season," I said. "Taste our browned butter yellow cake with a little apricot and some vanilla-almond buttercream, and see what you think." As they each took a small bite of what I hoped would be their signature cake flavors, I was drawn back into the taste of the peach. It was juicy and sweet, but as I got close to the center of the peach, their was an off flavor of rot. In my mind's eye, I could see a darkened area close to the center that would soon cause the peach to wither. I knew what that meant. I didn't know whose life would be blighted, but these golden days were few. They wouldn't have much time together.

He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes to the sun, as calling him for a witness; and being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo

But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. it's just their defencelessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. "This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like

She jumped out from hiding. “You killed me, you son of a bitch!” The Windigo stopped. As its bulbous red eyes fell on her, it occurred to her that, even though she was dead, there might be fates that could befall her spirit she should probably try to avoid. Swallowing, she stepped back. But the Windigo made no move toward her. Its voice was a thing of ice cracking in the middle of a frozen lake. “I have eaten your flesh already, child. Your spirit is of no use to me. I need fresh meat and hot blood.” Turning away, it continued through the forest. “What? That’s it? Take my body, then forget about me?” she yelled after its retreating back. “Obviously a guy,” she muttered.

My hand lingers in spite of itself; a hovering dragonfly above a cluster of dainties. A Plexiglas tray with a lid protects them; the name of each piece is lettered on the lid in fine, cursive script. The names are entrancing: Bitter orange cracknell. Apricot marzipan roll. Cerisette russe. White rum truffle. Manon blanc. Nipples of Venus. I feel myself flushing beneath the mask. How could anyone order something with a name like that? And yet they look wonderful, plumply white in the light of my torch, tipped with darker chocolate. I take one from the top of the tray. I hold it beneath my nose; it smells of cream and vanilla. No one will know. I realize that I have not eaten chocolate since I was a boy, more years ago than I can remember, and even then it was a cheap grade of chocolat à croquer, fifteen percent cocoa solids- twenty for the dark- with a sticky aftertaste of fat and sugar. Once or twice I bought Süchard from the supermarket, but at five times the price of the other, it was a luxury I could seldom afford. This is different altogether; the brief resistance of the chocolate shell as it meets the lips, the soft truffle inside.... There are layers of flavor like the bouquet of a fine wine, a slight bitterness, a richness like ground coffee; warmth brings the flavor to life, and it fills my nostrils, a taste succubus that has me moaning.

When at last he finally hooked one, despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to prevent it, she scrambled to her feet and backed up a step. “You-you’re hurting it!” she cried as he pulled the hook from its mouth. “Hurting what? The fish?” he asked in disbelief. “Yes!” “Nonsense,” said he, looking at her as if she was daft, then he tossed the fish on the bank. “It can’t breathe, I tell you!” she wailed, her eyes fixed on the flapping fish. “It doesn’t need to breathe,” he retorted. “We’re going to eat it for lunch.” “I certainly won’t!” she cried, managing to look at him as if he were a cold-blooded murderer. “Lady Cameron,” he said sternly, “am I to believe you’ve never eaten a fish?” “Well, of course I have.” “And where do you think the fish you’ve eaten came from?” he continued with irate logic. “It came from a nice tidy package wrapped in paper,” Elizabeth announced with a vacuous look. “They come in nice, tidy paper wrapping.” “Well, they weren’t born in that tidy paper,” he replied, and Elizabeth had a dreadful time hiding her admiration for his patience as well as for the firm tone he was finally taking with her. He was not, as she had originally thought, a fool or a namby-pamby. “Before that,” he persisted, “where was the fish? How did that fish get to the market in the first place?” Elizabeth gave her head a haughty toss, glanced sympathetically at the flapping fish, then gazed at him with haughty condemnation in her eyes. “I assume they used nets or something, but I’m perfectly certain they didn’t do it this way.” “What way?” he demanded. “The way you have-sneaking up on it in its own little watery home, tricking it by covering up your hook with that poor fuzzy thing, and then jerking the poor fish away from its family and tossing it on the bank to die. It’s quite inhumane!” she said, and she gave her skirts an irate twitch. Lord Marchman stared at her in frowning disbelief, then he shook his head as if trying to clear it. A few minutes later he escorted her home. Elizabeth made him carry the basket containing the fish on the opposite side from where she walked. And when that didn’t seem to discomfit the poor man she insisted he hold his arm straight out-to keep the basket even further from her person. She was not at all surprised when Lord Marchman excused himself until supper, nor when he remained moody and thoughtful throughout their uncomfortable meal. She covered the silence, however, by chattering earnestly about the difference between French and English fashions and the importance of using only the best kid for gloves, and then she regaled him with detailed descriptions of every gown she could remember seeing. By the end of the meal Lord Marchman looked dazed and angry; Elizabeth was a little hoarse and very encouraged.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Would a panther carry off a little girl, Pa?” “Yes,” said Pa. “And kill her and eat her, too. You and Mary must stay in the house till I shoot that panther. As soon as daylight comes I will take my gun and go after him.” All the next day Pa hunted that panther. And he hunted the next day and the next day. He found the panther’s tracks, and he found the hide and bones of an antelope that the panther had eaten, but he did not find the panther anywhere. The panther went swiftly through tree-tops, where it left no tracks. Pa said he would not stop till he killed that panther. He said, “We can’t have panthers running around in a country where there are little girls.” But he did not kill that panther, and he did stop hunting it. One day in the woods he met an Indian. They stood in the wet, cold woods and looked at each other, and they could not talk because they did not know each other’s words. But the Indian pointed to the panther’s tracks, and he made motions with his gun to show Pa that he had killed that panther. He pointed to the tree-tops and to the ground, to show that he had shot it out of a tree. And he motioned to the sky, and west and east, to say that he had killed it the day before. So that was all right. The panther was dead. Laura asked if a panther would carry off a little papoose and kill and eat her, too, and Pa said yes. Probably that was why the Indian had killed that panther.

As it baked, the blessed casserole smelled just like it did when I was a child, which was likely the last time I’d eaten it. I marveled that the scent of a specific dish could remain in one’s consciousness for over two decades. Except for the dark brown hair and the crumbling marriage, I’d officially become my mother. Marlboro Man, happy to have something warm to eat, declared it the best thing he’d ever eaten. I looked at the mess in the kitchen and felt like moving. Marlboro Man and I watched movies that night. Our TV satellite hadn’t been hooked up yet, so he’d transported his movie collection and VCR from his old house. And I didn’t have to get up and drive home when they were over, because I already was home.

I know all their favorites. It's a knack, a professional secret, like a fortune teller reading palms. My mother would have laughed at this waste of my skills, but I have no desire to probe farther into their lives than this. I do not want their secrets or their innermost thoughts. Nor do I want their fears or gratitude. A tame alchemist, she would have called me with kindly contempt, working domestic magic when I could have wielded marvels. But I like these people. I like their small and introverted concerns. I can read their eyes, their mouths, so easily- this one with its hint of bitterness will relish my zesty orange twists; this sweet-smiling one the soft-centered apricot hearts; this girl with the windblown hair will love the mendiants; this brisk, cheery woman the chocolate brazils. For Guillaume, the florentines, eaten neatly over a saucer in his tidy bachelor's house. Narcisse's appetite for double-chocolate truffles reveals the gentle heart beneath the gruff exterior. Caroline Clairmont will dream of cinder toffee tonight and wake hungry and irritable. And the children... Chocolate curls, white buttons with colored vermicelli, pain d'épices with gilded edging, marzipan fruits in their nests of ruffled paper, peanut brittle, clusters, cracknells, assorted misshapes in half-kilo boxes... I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crash-crash-crashing among the hazels and nougatines....

Okay,” I finally said. “Can we all agree that this is maybe the most screwed-up situation we’ve ever found ourselves in?” “Agreed,” they said in unison. “Awesome.” I gave a little nod. “And do either of you have any idea what we should do about it?” “Well, we can’t use magic,” Archer said. “And if we try to leave, we get eaten by Monster Fog,” Jenna added. “Right. So no plans at all, then?” Jenna frowned. “Other than rocking in the fetal position for a while?” “Yeah, I was thinking about taking one of those showers where you huddle in the corner fully clothed and cry,” Archer offered. I couldn’t help but snort with laughter. “Great. So we’ll all go have our mental breakdowns, and then we’ll somehow get ourselves out of this mess.” “I think our best bet is to lie low for a while,” Archer said. “Let Mrs. Casnoff think we’re all too shocked and awed to do anything. Maybe this assembly tonight will give us some answers.” “Answers,” I practically sighed. “About freaking time.” Jenna gave me a funny look. “Soph, are you…grinning?” I could feel my cheeks aching, so I knew that I was. “Look, you two have to admit: if we want to figure out just what the Casnoffs are plotting, this is pretty much the perfect place.” “My girl has a point,” Archer said, smiling at me. Now my cheeks didn’t just ache, they burned. Clearing her throat, Jenna said, “Okay, so we all go up to our rooms, then after the assembly tonight we can regroup and decide what to do next.” “Deal,” I said as Archer nodded. “Are we all going to high-five now?” Jenna asked after a pause. “No, but I can make up some kind of secret handshake if you want,” Archer said, and for a second, they smiled at each other. But just as quickly, the smile disappeared from Jenna’s face, and she said to me, “Let’s go. I want to see if our room is as freakified as the rest of this place.” “Good idea,” I said. Archer reached out and brushed his fingers over mine. “See you later, then?” he asked. His voice was casual, but my skin was hot where he touched me. “Definitely,” I answered, figuring that even a girl who has to stop evil witches from taking over the world could make time for kissage in there somewhere. He turned and walked away. As I watched him go, I could feel Jenna starting at me. “Fine,” she acknowledged with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “He’s a little dreamy.” I elbowed her gently in the side. “Thanks.” Jenna started to walk to the stairs. “You coming?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be right up. I just want to take a quick look around down here.” “Why, so you can be even more depressed?” Actually, I wanted to stay downstairs just a little longer to see if anyone else showed up. So far, I’d seen nearly everyone I remembered from last year at Hex Hall. Had Cal been dragged here, too? Technically he hadn’t been a student, but Mrs. Casnoff had used his powers a lot last year. Would she still want him here? To Jenna, I just said, “Yeah, you know me. I like poking bruises.” “Okay. Get your Nancy Drew on.

was tempted to tell him the truth: “See here, sir, the reason is there’s so much misery in Spain that we have to dunk our bread in puddles, there are no cats left in my town because we’ve eaten all the rats, the Republicans killed my mother because she had a cousin who was a nun hiding in our house, and then the Nationalists killed my father because he refused to bend his knee before a portrait of the caudillo. I have no family left, but I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life breaking my back in the mines, devoured by lice, and I sold my grandmother’s wedding ring—may she rest in peace—so I could buy a third-class ticket on a ship and start from zero, with just the clothes on my back, on the other side of the world. The reason is I wanna survive.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

My, my,” Chloe murmured, studying the chocolate she held. “I do believe this one’s gone off. It stinks like a cesspit.” Her eyes lifted. “Oh, wait. It’s only the guttersnipe.” “Or perhaps it’s your perfume,” I said cordially. “You always smell like a whore.” “It’s French,” retorted Runny-Nose, before Chloe could speak. “Then she smells like a French whore.” “Aren’t you the eloquent young miss.” Chloe’s gaze cut to Sophia, standing close behind me. “Slumming, little sister? I can’t confess I’m surprised.” “I’m merely here for the show,” Sophia said breezily. “Something tells me it’s going to be good.” I took the brooch from my pocket and let it slide down my index finger, giving it a playful twirl. “A fine try. But, alas, no winner’s prize for you, Chloe. I’m sure you’ve been waiting here for Westcliffe to raise the alarm about her missing ring, ready with some well-rehearsed story about how you saw me sneaking into her office and sneaking out again, and oh, look isn’t that Eleanore’s brooch there on the floor? But I’ve news for you, dearie. You’re sloppy. You’re stupid. And the next time you go into my room and steal from me, I’ll make certain you regret it for the rest of your days.” “How dare you threaten me, you little tart!” “I’m not threatening. You have no idea how easy it would be to, say, pour glue on your hair while you sleep. Cut up all your pretty dresses into ribbons.” Chloe dropped her half-eaten chocolate back into its box, turning to her toadies. “You heard her! You all head her! When Westcliffe finds out about this-“ “I didn’t hear a thing,” piped up Sophia. “In fact, I do believe that Eleanore and I aren’t even here right now. We’re both off in my room, diligently studying.” She sauntered to my side, smiling. “And I’ll swear to that, sister. Without hesitation. I have no misgivings about calling you all liars right to Westcliffe’s face.” “What fun,” I said softly, into the hush. “Shall we give it a go? What d’you say, girls? Up for a bit of blood sport?” Chloe pushed to her feet, kicking the chocolates out of her way. All the toadies cringed. “You,” she sneered, her gaze scouring me. “You with your ridiculous clothing and that preposterous bracelet, acting as if you actually belong here! Really, Eleanore, I wonder that you’ve learned nothing of real use yet. Allow me to explain matters to you. You may have duped Sophia into vouching for you, but your word means nothing. You’re no one. No matter what you do here or who you may somehow manage to impress, you’ll always be no one. How perfectly sad that you’re allowed to pretend otherwise.” “I’m the one he wants,” I said evenly. “No one’s pretending that.” I didn’t have to say who. She stared at me, silent, her color high. I saw with interest that real tears began to well in her eyes. “That’s right.” I gave the barest smile. “Me, not you. Think about that tomorrow, when I’m with him on the yacht. Think about how he watches me. How he listens to me. Another stunt like this”-I held up the circlet-“and you’ll be shocked at what I’m able to convince him about you.” “As if you could,” she scoffed, but there was apprehension behind those tears. “Try me.” I brought my foot down on one of the chocolates, grinding it into a deep, greasy smear along the rug. “Cheerio,” I said to them all, and turned around and left.

. . . Do you remember all the tiny turtles? How they hatched and how they began to run down toward the shore. On the way many were eaten up by birds. Only a few survived and made it to the ocean, to the water. There even more were eaten by fish, and perhaps some few grew up and became large. Just a few managed to carry out the program of their lives. The others were consumed by life. Their forms disappeared. They disinte- grated in the stomachs of birds or fish. Became the flapping of wings or the gentle movements of tail fins. But the original idea, to become a tur- tle, was not realized. That could only happen in the great depths. That is essentially man’s place in the universe. Just a few of us reach the edge of the water, the place where the spirit can be nourished. Just a few of us accomplish our goal and become Human, far too many become some- thing else, something used up by life, something that is equated with life. But when we come down to the great depths. Then the world is still and clarified . . . I want so much to be your sustenance, to be your light and your water. That’s why I’m often seized by bitterness when I see that instead I’m the person who makes you desperate, chaotic, confused and unhappy . . . My own wonderful turtle, I feel and I hope that you have this some- thing extra in you that can open your eyes so that you can see the ugly vampire that sits on your back, that creature in yourself that empties you of nourishment. And when you begin to suspect something of this . . . this unknown power that is fed by your negative emotional life willwithdraw, the devil will lose his interest in you and God will redouble his. Forgive me this letter. I love you.

. . . why you are here in the first place,” Lend finished saying. His voice had a distinctly menacing tone. “Why, to make you the best omelet you’ve ever had, of course.” There was a pause that I could only fill with my imagination. It involved Lend making I’m going to kill you motions with his hands. “Hey-oh,” Jack continued, “I rescued our girl Evie from the Center and helped her get to the Faerie Realms to save you.” “Our girl is my girl. And that makes everything okay now?” “It doesn’t,” I yelled. Would we never be able to have a quiet conversation again? “But it’s a start.” “A start I intend to finish with this omelet,” Jack said, “because after you’ve eaten it, all will be forgiven.” “I’m not eating anything you make,” Lend answered. I closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the fridge opening and drawers shutting slightly harder than they needed to.

Tate was sprawled across the bed in his robe early the next morning when the sound of the front door opening penetrated his mind. There was an unholy commotion out there and his head was still throbbing, despite a bath, several cups of coffee and a handful of aspirin that had been forced on him the day before by two men he’d thought were his friends. He didn’t want to sober up. He only wanted to forget that Cecily didn’t want him anymore. He dragged himself off the bed and went into the living room, just in time to hear the door close. Cecily and her suitcase were standing with mutual rigidity just inside the front door. She was wearing a dress and boots and a coat and hat, red-faced and muttering words Tate had never heard her use before. He scowled. “How did you get here?” he asked. “Your boss brought me!” she raged. “He and that turncoat Colby Lane and two bodyguards, one of whom was the female counterpart of Ivan the Terrible! They forcibly dressed me and packed me and flew me up here on Mr. Hutton’s Learjet! When I refused to get out of the car, the male bodyguard swept me up and carried me here! I am going to kill people as soon as I get my breath and my wits back, and I am starting with you!” He leaned against the wall, still bleary-eyed and only half awake. She was beautiful with her body gently swollen and her lips pouting and her green eye sin their big-lensed frames glittering at him. She registered after a minute that he wasn’t himself. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked abruptly. He didn’t answer. He put a hand to his head. “You’re drunk!” she exclaimed in shock. “I have been,” he replied in a subdued tone. “For about a week, I think. Pierce and Colby got my landlord to let them in yesterday.” She smiled dimly. “I’d made some threats about what I’d do if he ever let anybody else into my apartment, after he let Audrey in the last time. I guess he believed them, because Colby had to flash his company ID to get in.” He chuckled weakly. “Nothing intimidates the masses like a CIA badge, even if it isn’t current.” “You’ve been drunk?” She moved a little closer into the apartment. “But, Tate, you don’t…you don’t drink,” she said. “I do now. The mother of my child won’t marry me,” he said simply. “I said you could have access…” His black eyes slid over her body like caressing hands. He’d missed her unbearably. Just the sight of her was calming now. “So you did.” Why did the feel guilty, for God’s sake, she wondered. She tried to recapture her former outrage. “I’ve been kidnapped!” “Apparently. Don’t look at me. Until today, I was too stoned to lift my head.” He looked around. “I guess they threw out the beer cans and the pizza boxes,” he murmured. “Pity. I think there was a slice of pizza left.” He sighed. “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” “Yesterday!

Indeed, I would claim more suicides to be rational than would the common view. In many cultures (including most western cultures), there is immense prejudice against suicide. It is often viewed as cowardly where it is not dismissed as a consequence of mental illness. My view allows the possibility that suicide may more often be rational and may even be more rational than continuing to exist.This is because it may be an irrational love for life that keeps many people alive when their lives have actually become so bad that ceasing to exist would be better. This is the view expressed by the old woman in Voltaire’s Candide: A hundred times I wished to kill myself, but my love of life persisted. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of the most fatal of our faults. For what could be more stupid than to go on carrying a burden that we always long to lay down? To loathe, and yet cling to, existence? In short, to cherish the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten our hearts?

Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact. “I--Hermione, I’m sorry--I didn’t--” “Didn’t realize that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen if we come with you? Well, we do. Ron, show Harry what you’ve done.” “Nah, he’s just eaten,” said Ron. “Go on, he needs to know!” “Oh, all right. Harry, come here.” For the second time Ron withdrew his arm from around Hermione and stumped over to the door. “C’mon.” “Why?” Harry asked, following Ron out of the room onto the tiny landing. “Descendo,” muttered Ron, pointing his wand at the low ceiling. A hatch opened right over their heads and a ladder slid down to their feet. A horrible, half-sucking, half-moaning sound came out of the square hole, along with an unpleasant smell like open drains. “That’s your ghoul, isn’t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence. “Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.” Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His head and shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open. “But it…it looks…do ghouls normally wear pajamas?” “No,” said Ron. “Nor have they usually got red hair or that number of pustules.” Harry contemplated the thing, slightly revolted. It was human in shape and size, and was wearing what, now that Harry’s eyes became used to the darkness, was clearly an old pair of Ron’s pajamas. He was also sure that ghouls were generally rather slimy and bald, rather than distinctly hairy and covered in angry purple blisters. “He’s me, see?” said Ron. “No,” said Harry. “I don’t.” “I’ll explain it back in my room, the smell’s getting to me,” said Ron.

After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys. But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car. ‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.

I had to pass that bear, to get home. I thought that if I could scare him, he might get out of the road and let me go by. So I took a deep breath, and suddenly I shouted with all my might and ran at him, waving my arms. “He didn’t move. I did not run very far toward him, I tell you! I stopped and looked at him, and he stood looking at me. Then I shouted again. There he stood. I kept on shouting and waving my arms, but he did not budge. “Well, it would do me no good to run away. There were other bears in the woods. I might meet one any time. I might as well deal with this one as with another. Besides, I was coming home to Ma and you girls. I would never get here, if I ran away from everything in the woods that scared me. “So at last I looked around, and I got a good big club, a solid, heavy branch that had been broken from a tree by the weight of snow in the winter. “I lifted it up in my hands, and I ran straight at that bear. I swung my club as hard as I could and brought it down, bang! on his head. “And there he still stood, for he was nothing but a big, black, burned stump! “I had passed it on my way to town that morning. It wasn’t a bear at all. I only thought it was a bear, because I had been thinking all the time about bears and being afraid I’d meet one.” “It really wasn’t a bear at all?” Mary asked. “No, Mary, it wasn’t a bear at all. There I had been yelling, and dancing, and waving my arms, all by myself in the Big Woods, trying to scare a stump!” Laura said: “Ours was really a bear. But we were not scared, because we thought it was Sukey.” Pa did not say anything, but he hugged her tighter. “Oo-oo! That bear might have eaten Ma and me all up!” Laura said, snuggling closer to him. “But Ma walked right up to him and slapped him, and he didn’t do anything at all. Why didn’t he do anything?” “I guess he was too surprised to do anything, Laura,” Pa said. “I guess he was afraid, when the lantern shone in his eyes. And when Ma walked up to him and slapped him, he knew she wasn’t afraid.” “Well, you were brave, too,” Laura said. “Even if it was only a stump, you thought it was a bear. You’d have hit him on the head with a club, if he had been a bear, wouldn’t you, Pa?” “Yes,” said Pa, “I would. You see, I had to.

There's a rumor Barsky's Chemistry Club is cultivating some fierce bacteria in the lab," Frankie informed me a few minutes later, after I'd related Mademoiselle Winslow's ultimation, and my soon-to-be tutoring sessions with Alex. "I bet we could break in and get you a good dose of something. Put the kibosh on the tutoring. Could be a little pinkeye, could be leprosy..." He took a cheerful bite of his taco, which flaked everywhere. "Frankie!" Sadie scolded. "That's awful." She'd already finished her apple and Belgian endive. To me, "If it's this or fail French, well, you don't know; Alex might be just what you need." "Oh,yeah,he's a prince," Frankie muttered. "Abso-friggin-lutely guaranteed to man up and do the right thing." With that,he reached over and stole my french fries. He'd already eaten the baggie of almonds Sadie had decided had too much fat. Apparently, she and I were both obsessing with our appearance. She was having a hate-hate day with her upper arms. I was wondering if I was about to be at the tutorial mercy of the guy who'd looked right through me, or the guy who looked at me like I'd never been scarred at all.

So once we have the supersonic fart gun and everybody in the world is doing what I tell them, it will be time to make some changes. Here’s my list of changes (it’s only a rough draft at this stage): Make cabbage illegal (anyone caught growing, cooking, or eating cabbage will be sent straight to prison). Make ice-cream free (duh!) Make it the law that bread must be baked without crusts. Ban school. (This could be going too far. I might decide that school can be taught on Wednesdays. Wednesday mornings. I’ll think about it.) Make the 25th of every month Christmas Day (or just Lots of Presents for Kids Day if you don’t do Christmas). Make it the law that parents have to take kids to Disneyland at least twice a year, (more if they want to). Order all the scientists to work out why you can’t tickle yourself and what the purpose of snot is. Make showering optional. For me. If I decide that you stink, then you must shower. Change dinner time around so that dessert has to be eaten first. Ban all lumps from yoghurt. Actually, ban lumps from everything. Lumps are unnecessary. Nothing was ever made better with lumps. Ban the word ‘lump’. That’s all I’ve got so far.

When she was finished with the mailbox, Lisey trudged back down the driveway with her buckets in the long evening light. Breakfast had been coffee and oatmeal, lunch little more than a scoop of tuna and mayo on a scrap of lettuce, and dead cat or no dead cat, she was starved. She decided to put off her call to Woodbody until she had some food in her belly. The thought of calling the Sheriff's Office—anyone in a blue uniform, for that matter—hadn't yet returned to her. She washed her hands for three minutes, using very hot water and making sure any speck of blood was gone from under her nails. Then she found the Tupperware dish containing the leftover Cheeseburger Pie, scraped it onto a plate, and blasted it in the microwave. While she waited for the chime, she hunted a Pepsi out of the fridge. She remembered thinking she'd never finish the Hamburger Helper stuff once her initial lust for it had been slaked. You could add that to the bottom of the long, long list of Things in Life Lisey Has Been Wrong About, but so what? Big diddly, as Cantata had been fond of saying in her teenage years. "I never claimed to be the brains of the outfit," Lisey told the empty kitchen, and the microwave bleeped as if to second that. The reheated gloop was almost too hot to eat but Lisey gobbled it anyway, cooling her mouth with fizzy mouthfuls of cold Pepsi. As she was finishing the last bite, she remembered the low whispering sound the cat's fur had made against the tin sleeve of the mailbox, and the weird pulling sensation she'd felt as the body began, reluctantly, to come forward. He must have really crammed it in there, she thought, and Dick Powell once more came to mind, black-and-white Dick Powell, this time saying And have some stuffing! She was up and rushing for the sink so fast she knocked her chair over, sure she was going to vomit everything she'd just eaten, she was going to blow her groceries, toss her cookies, throw her heels, donate her lunch. She hung over the sink, eyes closed, mouth open, midsection locked and straining. After a pregnant five-second pause, she produced one monstrous cola-burp that buzzed like a cicada. She leaned there a moment longer, wanting to make absolutely sure that was all. When she was, she rinsed her mouth, spat, and pulled "Zack McCool"'s letter from her jeans pocket. It was time to call Joseph Woodbody.

KOPI LUWAK In Indonesia, Kopi Luwak refers to coffees that are produced by collecting the droppings of civet cats that have eaten coffee cherries. This semi-digested coffee is separated from the faecal matter and then processed and dried. In the last decade it has come to be seen as an amusing novelty, with unattributed claims of its excellent flavours, and it sells for spectacularly high prices. This has caused two main problems. Firstly, the forgery of this coffee is quite commonplace. Several times more is sold than produced, and often low-grade Robusta is being passed off at high prices. Secondly, it has encouraged unscrupulous operators on the islands to trap and cage civet cats, force-feed them with coffee cherries and keep them in terrible conditions. I find Kopi Luwak abhorrent on just about every level. If you are interested in delicious coffee then it is a terrible waste of money. One-quarter of the money you might spend on a bag could instead buy you a stunning coffee from one of the very best producers in the world. I can only regard the practice as abusive and unethical and I believe people should avoid all animal-processed coffees, and not reward this despicable behaviour with their money.

She shook her head. "It sounds suspiciously like Nirvana." "What's wrong with that?" "Pure Spirit, one hundred percent proof—that's a drink that only the most hardened contemplation guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work." "This is better," Will insisted. "You mean, it's more delicious. That's why it's such an enormous temptation. The only temptation that God could succumb to. The fruit of the ignorance of good and evil. What heavenly lusciousness, what a supermango! God had been stuffing Himself with it for billions of years. Then all of a sudden, up comes Homo sapiens, out pops the knowledge of good and evil. God had to switch to a much less palatable brand of fruit. You've just eaten a slice of the original supermango, so you can sympathize with Him." A chair creaked, there was a rustle of skirts, then a series of small busy sounds that he was unable to interpret. What was she doing? He could have answered that question by simply opening his eyes. But who cared, after all, what she might be doing? Nothing was of any importance except this blazing uprush of bliss and understanding. "Supermango to fruit of knowledge — I'm going to wean you," she said, "by easy stages.

I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her—green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs—would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled. But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska’s genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirely. There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself—those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. So I know she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison’s last words were: “It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

The Pillowcase" is printed with iridescent fish, each facing a different direction. I bought it for you at the Portland Goodwill our last semester in college. Spring break we brought it camping. I pretended I’d eaten sardines before, pretended I liked them. I don’t remember what you said when the condom broke. Probably ‘Oh, shit.’ The next day we drove into town. I took a pill and another pill and it was over. I couldn’t tell the difference, could have told my friends but didn’t, just made lots of dead baby jokes and went to bed in your dorm room. You’d put painter’s tape on all the edges. With the pillowcase, it was like living in the blueprint of an aquarium. I slept there the night I smoked Sasha’s weed and you stayed up for hours rubbing my back, telling fairytales so I wouldn’t totally lose it. I slept there the night I tried reading you Haruki Murakami’s Sleep but fell asleep. I slept there the night after the day I lost the bet and had to wear a lampshade on my head and your professor said ‘Nice hat.’ Later I learned she owns a lamp in the shape of a woman. I slept there the night you said ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ igniting a great unendurable belongingness, like a match in a forest fire. I burned so long so quiet you must have wondered if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do.

The shower turned out to be glorious once I adjusted the water to a cool enough temperature so as not to produce any steam. I washed my hair, noticing that my favorite shampoo suddenly smelled like Hades--as did my trusty facial scrub, which had so loyally saved my face from looking like the back of a lizard on the day of my wedding. Just as I was rinsing the last of the suds from my hair, Marlboro Man suddenly burst through the door of the bathroom and yelled, “Hey!” I screamed bloody murder from the startle, then screamed again because I was naked and feeling queasy and unattractive. Then I felt sick from the excitement. “Hi,” I managed, grabbing a towel from the rack and wrapping it around myself as quickly as I could. “Gotcha,” he said, smiling the sexiest smile I’d ever seen while in such a sick state. Then he stopped and looked at me. “Are you okay?” He must have noticed the verdant glow of my skin. “I’ll be honest,” I said, making my way back to our bedroom. “It’s pretty bad. I’m going to try to get in to the doctor today and see if there’s anything he can do about it.” I fell backward onto the bed. “My ears must have been permanently damaged or something.” Marlboro Man moved toward me, looking like the cat that had just eaten the canary. “Scared you, didn’t I?” he chuckled as he wrapped his arms around my towel-cloaked body. I breathed him in, wrapping my arms around him, too. Then I shot up and raced back to the bathroom so I could throw up again.

The pan dulce was perfect, and it gave Anna an idea. Talking to Lila about her favorite memories of her mother had shaken loose parts of the past she had either forgotten or overlooked. Like the songs her mother would sing as she cooked the one and only thing she ever cooked; like that time they visited the family coffee estate and Mum shot a rampaging wild boar and then they cooked and ate it later that night; like the smell of rain in the forest; like the fat, sour gooseberries they would pick off the trees; like fresh peppercorns straight off the vine; like countless other jumbled memories and smells and tastes and sounds that had been tucked away in some corner of her mind gathering dust for so long. Mum's favorite dish, the one and only thing she ever cooked. I'm going to make it. Anna had never learned how to make it, because she had always arrogantly assumed her mother would be around forever, but she had eaten it so many times that she was sure she could recreate it by memory and taste alone. This is it. Her favorite food. She would have to thank Lila for the inspiration later. This was the connection she had been afraid she would never find. It was a way to hold on to everything she had lost. "Can I borrow your wallet, Dad?" Excited for the first time in what felt like months, Anna rushed out to the neighborhood grocery store and picked out the ingredients she hoped would work. Curry leaves, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green chilies, red chilies, limes, honey, and, finally, a fresh shoulder of pork.

If I’m ever tempted to let it get to my head, all I have to do is remember the first time I was recognized in public. I was with Jennie Garth, back in Season 3. She was way more famous than me (Derek Who?) and she was asked to the Eiffel Tower ceremony at the Paris Las Vegas hotel. They shut off half the strip and there were thousands of people outside the hotel lined up to see it. I was onstage supporting her, when I was suddenly hit with a wave of nausea. I knew instantly I had food poisoning from something I’d eaten earlier in the day. I knew if I didn’t get off the stage at that moment, I was going to throw up--and that would be the story on the evening news, not Jennie’s lighting! I jumped off the stage and just wanted to get back to my room where I could vomit in peace. As I was racing through the hotel lobby, a few people stopped me. “Aren’t you Derek Hough from Dancing with the Stars?” I was trying to be polite, but I just kept eyeing garbage cans in case I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Yeah, thanks,” I said. I signed a few autographs and tried to push my way to the elevators. “Wait! Derek! Can I get you to sign this?” More people started coming at me. I swear, I had to hold my breath so I wouldn’t hurl! When I finally got upstairs, I threw up thirty-two times. I was deathly ill. But somewhere, in that haze of hellish food poisoning, it hit me: This is pretty cool! People know who I am! But I’ve tried my hardest not to let that change me. I’m kind of a free spirit; what you see is what you get. Inside is still that crazy little boy who liked to bounce off his living room walls.

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast.  Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him.  And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it.  His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on.  Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it.  And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws.  The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them.  So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment.  I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung.  I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet.  I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them.  and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

Growling softly, Peril opened her mouth again. The next two pieces sailed straight past her head, but the third finally splatted between her teeth, and she snapped her jaws shut around it. It felt like a cold slimy frog had just leaped into her mouth. She chewed for a moment, as long as she could bear it, and then swallowed fast. “No,” she said. “Definitely no. Horrifying amounts of no. That was one hundred percent disgusting.” Turtle laughed. “You’re so wrong,” he said. “It’s awesome. That’s how fish should be eaten.” “Blergh,” Peril said strongly. She hopped to the next boulder, heading for the shore. “I’m going to find something that is the opposite of fish, scorch it, and then coat my tongue with char to get that taste out of my mouth. YUUUCK. You are the worst. I would be so justified in setting you on fire while you’re asleep tonight.” “Duly noted,” Turtle said serenely. “Did I mention I’ll be sleeping at the bottom of the river? You know, if you’re looking for me.” He grinned at her. Peril paused on the riverbank, squinting at him. She had been joking, of course. There were a number of excellent reasons not to set Turtle on fire, which outweighed any potential benefits to doing so. But it unsettled her for a moment to realize that by sleeping in the river — even by standing in the river right now — he could foil any plan she did make, if she ever needed to burn him up. Not that I would. Probably. I most likely would never need to. And I wouldn’t want to, of course, that, too. But she’d never run into a situation where someone could stop her like that, apart from Clay. Maybe I did have an unfair advantage fighting SeaWings in the arena. If I were fighting them in their own part of the world —

Chris- the one who wrote the halfway creepy thing about missing me so much when I didn't post and thinking I was dead- found it mind-boggling that before the Julie/Julia Project began, I had never eaten an egg. She asked, "How can you have gotten through life without eating a single egg? How is that POSSIBLE???!!!!!" Of course, it wasn't exactly true that I hadn't eaten an egg. I had eaten them in cakes. I had even eaten them scrambled once or twice, albeit in the Texas fashion, with jalapeños and a pound of cheese. But the goal of my egg-eating had always been to make sure the egg did not look, smell, or taste anything like one, and as a result my history in this department was, I suppose, unusual. Chris wasn't the only person shocked. People I'd never heard of chimed in with their awe and dismay. I didn't really get it. Surely this is not such a bizarre hang-up as hating, say, croutons, like certain spouses I could name. Luckily, eggs made the Julia Child way often taste like cream sauce. Take Oeufs en Cocotte, for example. These are eggs baked with some butter and cream in ramekins set in a shallow pan of water. They are tremendous. In fact the only thing better than Oeufs en Cocotte is Ouefs en Cocotte with Sauce au Cari on top when you've woken up with a killer hangover, after one of those nights when somebody decided at midnight to buy a pack of cigarettes after all, and the girls wind up smoking and drinking and dancing around the living room to the music the boy is downloading from iTunes onto his new, ludicrously hip and stylish G3 Powerbook until three in the morning. On mornings like this, Oeufs en Cocotte with Sauce au Cari, a cup of coffee, and an enormous glass of water is like a meal fed to you by the veiled daughters of a wandering Bedouin tribe after one of their number comes upon you splayed out in the sands of the endless deserts of Araby, moments from death- it's that good.

After dinner, as we had so many times during our months and months together, Marlboro Man and I adjourned to his porch. It was dark--we’d eaten late--and despite my silent five-minute battle with the reality of my reproductive system, there was definitely something special about the night. I stood at the railing, breathing in the dewy night air and taking in all the sounds of the countryside that would one day be my home. The pumping of a distant oil well, the symphony of crickets, the occasional moo of a mama cow, the manic yipping of coyotes…the din of country life was as present and reassuring as the cacophony of car horns, traffic sounds, and sirens had been in L.A. I loved everything about it. He appeared behind me; his strong arms wrapped around my waist. Oh, it was real, all right--he was real. As I touched his forearms and ran the palms of my hands from his elbows down to his wrists, I’d never been more sure of how very real he was. Here, grasping me in his arms, was the Adonis of all the romance-novel fantasies I clearly never realized I’d been having; they’d been playing themselves out in steamy detail under the surface of my consciousness, and I never even knew I’d been missing it. I closed my eyes and rested my head back on his chest, just as his impossibly soft lips and subtle whiskers rested on my neck. Romancewise, it was perfection--the night air was still--almost imperceptible. Physically, viscerally, it was almost more than I could stand. Six babies? Sure. How ’bout seven? Is that enough? Standing there that night, I would have said eight, nine, ten. And I could have gotten started right away. But getting started would have to wait. There’d be plenty of time for that. For that night, that dark, perfect night, we simply stayed on the porch and locked ourselves in kiss after beautiful, steamy kiss. And before too long, it was impossible to tell where his arms ended and where my body began.

According to his closest disciple who served him while patriarch, Fr Raphael Ava Mina, Kyrillos' diet was meager and austere. When he broke his fast around midday—having started the day with psalmody at three in the morning—it would inevitably be with a piece of bread (qorban) and dukkah. With much pleading, he could occasionally be convinced to add a few small spoons of beans. Often Kyrillos would be delayed by meetings and then he would have his breakfast only after three in the afternoon. For lunch, he would usually have some dried bread with a small number of cooked vegetables—but, Fr Raphael recalls, he would never actually eat the vegetables, but only dip his bread in their sauce. Before he slept, he would usually be satisfied with some fruit or bread at most. "I never saw him touch a piece of chicken or meat, or even have a sip of milk." That was during the non-fasting days. In fasting times, especially that of Lent and the Theotokos fast, even though he had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, he would eat only once later in the evening. At one point during the fifty days of Resurrection, Kyrillos gave his regular cook a few days of leave, upon which Fr Raphael, who in his own words "did not know how to cook," thought to take care of the kitchen. Each evening he would lay out roasted chicken, a few small pieces of meat, rice, bread and cheese; only to find the chicken and meat untouched, with the bread and cheese eaten. Given the poor refrigeration of the day, each evening would see a new meal largely wasted. "I need to tell you something...I don't think he likes chicken," the disciple recalls telling the cook when he returned. Confused, the cook rebuked Fr Raphael, saying, "He would never eat it like that....You need to cut chicken so fine and mix it with the rice so that he cannot see it!" A man of sixty, physically large and athletic, and yet they had to trick him, lest he eat only bread and cumin.

I hopped in the car and headed toward the ranch. I almost fell asleep at the wheel. Twice. Marlboro Man met me at the road that led to his parents’ house, and I followed him down five miles of graveled darkness. When we pulled into the paved drive, I saw the figure of his mother through the kitchen window. She was sipping coffee. My stomach gurgled. I should have eaten something. A croissant, back at my parents’ house. A bowl of Grape-Nuts, maybe. Heck, a Twinkie at QuikTrip would have been nice. My stomach was in knots. When I exited the car, Marlboro Man was there. Shielded by the dark of the morning, we were free to greet each other not only with a close, romantic hug but also a soft, sweet kiss. I was glad I’d remembered to brush my teeth. “You made it,” he said, smiling and rubbing my lower back. “Yep,” I replied, concealing a yawn. “And I got a five-mile run in before I came. I feel awesome.” “Uh-huh,” he said, taking my hand and heading toward the house. “I sure wish I were a morning person like you.” When we walked into the house, his parents were standing in the foyer. “Hey!” his dad said with a gravelly voice the likes of which I’d never heard before. Marlboro Man came by it honestly. “Hello,” his mom said warmly. They were there to welcome me. Their house smelled deliciously like leather. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Ree.” I reached out and shook their hands. “You sure look nice this morning,” his mom remarked. She looked comfortable, as if she’d rolled out of bed and thrown on the first thing she’d found. She looked natural, like she hadn’t set her alarm for 3:40 A.M. so she could be sure to get on all nine layers of mascara. She was wearing tennis shoes. She looked at ease. She looked beautiful. My palms felt clammy. “She always looks nice,” Marlboro Man said to his mom, touching my back lightly. I wished I hadn’t curled my hair. That was a little over-the-top. That, and the charcoal eyeliner. And the raspberry shimmer lip gloss.

Then it was time for dessert: another plate, full of big, white larvas from the palm nut tree. And I do mean big—each one was longer and thicker than my thumb, and had been lightly fried in its own fat. But I wondered, had they been too lightly fried? Because they seemed to be moving. The villagers were proud to offer us such a delicious treat. Remember, I am a sword swallower. I should be able to push anything down my throat. And I am not usually a fussy eater: I had even once eaten porridge made from mosquitos. But no. This, I couldn’t do. The heads of the larvas looked like little brown nuts and their thick bodies like transparent wrinkled marshmallows, through which I could see their intestines. The villagers gestured that I should bite them in two and suck out the insides. If I tried I would puke the rat back up. I did not want to offend. Suddenly, an idea. I smiled softly and said regretfully, “You know what, I am sorry, but I can’t eat larvas.” Thorkild turned to me, surprised. He already had a couple of larvas hanging out of the corners of his mouth. He really loved those larvas. He had previously worked as a missionary in Congo, where they had been the highlight of every week for one whole year. “You see, we don’t eat larvas,” I said, trying to look convincing. The villagers looked at Thorkild. “But he eats them?” they asked. Thorkild stared at me. “Ah,” I said. “You see, he comes from a different tribe. I come from Sweden, he comes from Denmark. In Denmark, they love eating larvas. But in Sweden it’s against our culture.” The village teacher went and got out the world map and I pointed out the water separating our two countries. “On this side of the water they eat larvas,” I said, “and on this side we don’t.” It’s actually one of the most blatant lies I have ever told, but it worked. The villagers were happy to share my dessert between them. Everyone, everywhere knows that people from different tribes have different customs.

The store smells of roasted chicken and freshly ground coffee, raw meat and ripening stone fruit, the lemon detergent they use to scrub the old sheet-linoleum floors. I inhale and feel the smile form on my face. It's been so long since I've been inside any market other than Fred Meyer, which smells of plastic and the thousands of people who pass through every day. By instinct, I head for the produce section. There, the close quarters of slim Ichiban eggplant, baby bok choy, brilliant red chard, chartreuse-and-purple asparagus, sends me into paroxysms of delight. I'm glad the store is nearly empty; I'm oohing and aahing with produce lust at the colors, the smooth, shiny textures set against frilly leaves. I fondle the palm-size plums, the soft fuzz of the peaches. And the berries! It's berry season, and seven varieties spill from green cardboard containers: the ubiquitous Oregon marionberry, red raspberry, and blackberry, of course, but next to them are blueberries, loganberries, and gorgeous golden raspberries. I pluck one from a container, fat and slightly past firm, and pop it into my mouth. The sweet explosion of flavor so familiar, but like something too long forgotten. I load two pints into my basket. The asparagus has me intrigued. Maybe I could roast it with olive oil and fresh herbs, like the sprigs of rosemary and oregano poking out of the salad display, and some good sea salt. And salad. Baby greens tossed with lemon-infused olive oil and a sprinkle of vinegar. Why haven't I eaten a salad in so long? I'll choose a soft, mild French cheese from the deli case, have it for an hors d'oeuvre with a beautiful glass of sparkling Prosecco, say, then roast a tiny chunk of spring lamb that I'm sure the nice sister will cut for me, and complement it with a crusty baguette and roasted asparagus, followed by the salad. Followed by more cheese and berries for dessert. And a fruity Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to wash it all down. My idea of eating heaven, a French-influenced feast that reminds me of the way I always thought my life would be.

Go on, ask me another question. I’m rather enjoying this game.” He cocked an eyebrow at her and, although he was certain it was pointless, he said, “Cheep cheep?” The herbalist brayed with laughter, and some of the werecats opened their mouths in what appeared to be toothy smiles. However, Shadowhunter seemed displeased, for she dug her claws into Eragon’s legs, making him wince. “Well,” said Angela, still laughing, “if you must have answers, that’s as good a story as any. Let’s see…Several years ago, when I was traveling along the edge of Du Weldenvarden, way out to the west, miles and miles from any city, town, or village, I happened upon Grimrr. At the time, he was only the leader of a small tribe of werecats, and he still had full use of both his paws. Anyway, I found him toying with a fledgling robin that had fallen out of its nest in a nearby tree. I wouldn’t have minded if he had just killed the bird and eaten it--that’s what cats are supposed to do, after all--but he was torturing the poor thing: pulling on its wings; nibbling its tail; letting it hop away, then knocking it over.” Angela wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I told him that he ought to stop, but he only growled and ignored me.” She fixed Eragon with a stern gaze. “I don’t like it when people ignore me. So, I took the bird away from him, and I wiggled my fingers and cast a spell, and for the next week, whenever he opened his mouth, he chirped like a songbird.” “He chirped?” Angela nodded, beaming with suppressed mirth. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. None of the other werecats would go anywhere near him for the whole week.” “No wonder he hates you.” “What of it? If you don’t make a few enemies every now and then, you’re a coward--or worse. Besides, it was worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!” Shadowhunter uttered a soft warning growl and tightened her claws again. Grimacing, Eragon said, “Maybe it would be best to change the subject?” “Mmm.” Before he could suggest a new topic, a loud scream rang out from somewhere in the middle of the camp. The cry echoed three times over the rows of tents before fading into silence. Eragon looked at Angela, and she at him, and then they both began to laugh.

I am going to end up alone," he moaned. "Not in any conceivable universe!" One of Sadie's best qualities is the ability to say "Are you effing insane?" with such sweet conviction and nicer words. "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner." "A dry cleaner?" "He could have said a bar," I offered. "True," he conceded. Frankie was on a roll. "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat. Who bites me." "Oh,Frankie-" "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat who bites me and pees in my closet full of moth-eaten sweaters." "Well,maybe," Sadie said, reaching around to hug both of us. "But the sweaters will be Dolce & Gabbana." One of her other fabulous qualities is that underneath the sweet conviction, she does have a sense of humor. Frankie did laugh. Then he gave a sigh that I could feel all the way through me. I knew Sadie did,too. "I liked him," he said, very quietly. "I really did. And I thought he felt the same way. I bent and twisted and distorted everything that happened between us to fit my pretty little picture. God, I believed my own hype. How stupid, how incredibly stupid was that?" "Not stupid." Sadie squeezed. "Hopeful. And if we're not that, what's the point? El? Help me out here." I wanted to.I really did. But all I could think of was the fact that at home, exactly where I'd put it in my bag, which was still exactly where I'd dumped it on the floor, was the evidence that Edward had let me down. I was keeping that to myself, at least for the moment. Twisted it to fit my pretty little picture. I didn't think I could take Frankie's complete lack of surprise that a guy (even a dead one) had let me down-or Sadie's sympathy. Not on top of my own anger. Because,plain and simple,it wasn't okay to look at another woman like that, not when you met the love of your life and gave a big flipped finger to the people around you so you could be with her. Not okay even if she was dead, because I, Ella, really really want to believe that sometimes love does conquer all, and sometimes some things do last foever. Truth: Yes,I really am that naive. "You're perfect," I said to Frankie. And I meant it.

I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her -- green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs -- would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled. But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska's genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirely. There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, one thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed. And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself -- those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be. When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.

Something diseased and furry had crawled into her mouth and expired while she slept. That was the only possible explanation as to why Neve had a rancid taste in her mouth and a heavy, viscous paste coating her teeth and tongue. ‘I think I’m dying,’ she groaned. The wretched state of her mouth was the least of it. There was a pounding in her head, echoed in the roiling of her gut, and her bones ached, her vital organs ached, her throat ached, even her hair follicles ached. ‘You’re not dying,’ said a voice in her ear, which sounded like nails scraping down a blackboard, even though Max’s voice had barely risen above a whisper. ‘You’ve got a hangover.’ Neve had had hangovers before and they just made her feel a tiny bit nauseous and grouchy. This felt like the bastard child of bubonic plague and the ebola virus. ‘Dying,’ she reiterated, and now she realised that she was in bed, which had been a very comfy bed the last time she’d slept in it, but now it felt as if she was lying on a pile of rocks, and even though she had the quilt and Max’s arm tucked around her, she was still cold and clammy. Neve tried to raise her head but her gaze collided with the stripy wallpaper and as well as searing her retinas, it was making her stomach heave. ‘Sick. Going to be sick.’ ‘Sweetheart, I don’t think so,’ Max said, stroking the back of her neck with feather-soft fingers. ‘You’ve already thrown up just about everything you’ve eaten in the last week.’ ‘Urgh …’ Had she? The night before was a big gaping hole in her memory. ‘What happened?’ ‘I don’t know what happened but I got a phone call from the Head of Hotel Security at three in the morning asking me if I could identify a raving madwoman in a silver dress who couldn’t remember her room number but insisted that someone called Max Pancake was sleeping there. They thought you might be a hack from the Sunday Mirror pretending to be absolutely spannered as a way of getting into the hotel.’ ‘Oh, no …’ ‘Yeah, apparently Ronaldo’s staying in one of the penthouse suites and I saw Wayne and Coleen in the bar last night. Anyway, as you were staggering down the corridor, you told me very proudly that you’d lost your phone and you’d just eaten two pieces of KFC and a bag of chips.’ ‘KFC? Oh, God …’ ‘But I wouldn’t worry about that because after you’d tried to persuade me to have my wicked way with you, you started throwing up and you didn’t stop, not for hours. I thought you were going to sleep curled around the toilet at one point.’ ‘Goodness …

I’d been reflecting on this--the drastic turn my life and my outlook on love had taken--more and more on the evenings Marlboro Man and I spent together, the nights we sat on his quiet porch, with no visible city lights or traffic sounds anywhere. Usually we’d have shared a dinner, done the dishes, watched a movie. But we’d almost always wind up on his porch, sitting or standing, overlooking nothing but dark, open countryside illuminated by the clear, unpolluted moonlight. If we weren’t wrapping in each other’s arms, I imagined, the quiet, rural darkness might be a terribly lonely place. But Marlboro Man never gave me a chance to find out. It was on this very porch that Marlboro Man had first told me he loved me, not two weeks after our first date. It had been a half-whisper, a mere thought that had left his mouth in a primal, noncalculated release. And it had both surprised and melted me all at once; the honesty of it, the spontaneity, the unbridled emotion. But though everything in my gut told me I was feeling exactly the same way, in all the time since I still hadn’t found the courage to repeat those words to him. I was guarded, despite the affection Marlboro Man heaped upon me. I was jaded; my old relationship had done that to me, and watching the crumbling of my parents’ thirty-year marriage hadn’t exactly helped. There was just something about saying the words “I love you” that was difficult for me, even though I knew, without a doubt, that I did love him. Oh, I did. But I was hanging on to them for dear life--afraid of what my saying them would mean, afraid of what might come of it. I’d already eaten beef--something I never could have predicted I’d do when I was living the vegetarian lifestyle. I’d gotten up before 4:00 A.M. to work cattle. And I’d put my Chicago plans on hold. At least, that’s what I’d told myself all that time. I put my plans on hold. That was enough, wasn’t it? Putting my life’s plans on hold for him? Marlboro Man had to know I loved him, didn’t he? He was so confident when we were together, so open, so honest, so transparent and sure. There was no such thing as “give-and-take” with him. He gave freely, poured out his heart willingly, and either he didn’t particularly care what my true feelings were for him, or, more likely, he already knew. Despite my silence, despite my fear of totally losing my grip on my former self, on the independent girl that I’d wanted to believe I was for so long…he knew. And he had all the patience he needed to wait for me to say it.

Their Graces bought me, you know. They’d acquired my brother Devlin the year before, and my mother, inspired by this development, threatened to publish all manner of lurid memoirs regarding His Grace.” Acquired her brother? As if he were a promising yearling colt or an attractive patch of ground? “You are going to burden me with the details of your family past, I take it?” “You are the man who glories in details.” Without the least rude inflection, she made it sound like a failing. “My point is that my mother sold me. She could just as easily have sold me to a brothel. It’s done all the time. Unlike your sisters, Mr. Hazlit, I do not take for granted the propriety with which I was raised. You may ignore it if you please; I will not.” She had such a lovely voice. Light, soft, lilting with a hint of something Gaelic or Celtic… exotic. The sound of her voice was so pretty, it almost disguised the ugliness of her words. “How old were you?” “Five, possibly six. It depends on whether I am truly Moreland’s by-blow or just a result of my mother’s schemes in his direction.” Six years old and sold to a brothel? The food he’d eaten threatened to rebel. “I’m… sorry.” For calling her a dollymop, for making her repeat this miserable tale, for what he was about to suggest. She turned her head to regard him, the slight sheen in her eyes making him sorrier still. Sorrier than he could recall being about anything in a long, long time. Not just guilty and ashamed, but full of regret—for her. The way he’d been full of regret for his sisters and powerless to do anything but support them in their solitary struggles. He shoved that thought aside, along with the odd notion that he should take Magdalene Windham’s hand in some laughable gesture of comfort. He passed her his handkerchief instead. “This makes the stated purpose of my call somewhat awkward.” “It makes just about everything somewhat awkward,” she said quietly. “Try a few years at finishing school when you’re the daughter of not just a courtesan—there are some of those, after all—but a courtesan who sells her offspring. I realized fairly early that my mother’s great failing was not a lack of virtue, but rather that she was greedy in her fall from grace.” “She exploited a child,” Hazlit said. “That is an order of magnitude different from parlaying with an adult male in a transaction of mutual benefit.” “Do you think so?” She laid his handkerchief out in her lap, her fingers running over his monogrammed initials. “Some might say she was protecting me, providing for me and holding the duke accountable for his youthful indiscretions.” Despite her mild tone, Hazlit didn’t think Miss Windham would reach those conclusions. She might long to, but she wouldn’t. By the age of six a child usually had the measure of her caretakers. And to think of Maggie Windham at six… big innocent green eyes, masses of red hair, perfect skin… in a brothel. “I

We went to dinner that night and ordered steak and talked our usual dreamy talk, intentionally avoiding the larger, looming subject. When he brought me home, it was late, and the air was so perfect that I was unaware of the temperature. We stood outside my parents’ house, the same place we’d stood two weeks earlier, before the Linguine with Clam Sauce and J’s surprise visit; before the overcooked flank steak and my realization that I was hopelessly in love. The same place I’d almost wiped out on the sidewalk; the same place he’d kissed me for the first time and set my heart afire. Marlboro Man moved in for the kill. We stood there and kissed as if it was our last chance ever. Then we hugged tightly, burying our faces in each other’s necks. “What are you trying to do to me?” I asked rhetorically. He chuckled and touched his forehead to mine. “What do you mean?” Of course, I wasn’t able to answer. Marlboro Man took my hand. Then he took the reins. “So, what about Chicago?” I hugged him tighter. “Ugh,” I groaned. “I don’t know.” “Well…when are you going?” He hugged me tighter. “Are you going?” I hugged him even tighter, wondering how long we could keep this up and continue breathing. “I…I…ugh, I don’t know,” I said. Ms. Eloquence again. “I just don’t know.” He reached behind my head, cradling it in his hands. “Don’t…,” he whispered in my ear. He wasn’t beating around the bush. Don’t. What did that mean? How did this work? It was too early for plans, too early for promises. Way too early for a lasting commitment from either of us. Too early for anything but a plaintive, emotional appeal: Don’t. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Don’t let it end. Don’t move to Chicago. I didn’t know what to say. We’d been together every single day for the past two weeks. I’d fallen completely and unexpectedly in love with a cowboy. I’d ended a long-term relationship. I’d eaten beef. And I’d begun rethinking my months-long plans to move to Chicago. I was a little speechless. We kissed one more time, and when our lips finally parted, he said, softly, “Good night.” “Good night,” I answered as I opened the door and went inside. I walked into my bedroom, eyeing the mound of boxes and suitcases that sat by the door, and plopped down on my bed. Sleep eluded me that night. What if I just postponed my move to Chicago by, say, a month or so? Postponed, not canceled. A month surely wouldn’t hurt, would it? By then, I reasoned, I’d surely have him out of my system; I’d surely have gotten my fill. A month would give me all the time I needed to wrap up this whole silly business. I laughed out loud. Getting my fill of Marlboro Man? I couldn’t go five minutes after he dropped me off at night before smelling my shirt, searching for more of his scent. How much worse would my affliction be a month from now? Shaking my head in frustration, I stood up, walked to my closet, and began removing more clothes from their hangers. I folded sweaters and jackets and pajamas with one thing pulsating through my mind: no man--least of all some country bumpkin--was going to derail my move to the big city. And as I folded and placed each item in the open cardboard boxes by my door, I tried with all my might to beat back destiny with both hands. I had no idea how futile my efforts would be.

I want you to be happy. Eat it.” A wry smile curved Rose’s lips. “Am I to find happiness in a piece of chocolate cake?” Eve already had a forkful en route to her mouth. “I stake my reputation on it.” “Oh,” she replied dryly. “Surely heaven is just a bite away.” “Speaking of heaven,” Eve said a few minutes later when Rose thought she might expire from the bliss the dessert inspired, “tell me about your evening at Saint’s Row.” “Shh!” Her paranoid gaze darted around to see if anyone had overheard, but there was no one standing close enough to their whitewashed bench. “Don’t shush me, Rose Danvers. I’m your best friend and you’ve kept me waiting four whole days! I demand details.” Cheeks flushed, Rose stared at the half-eaten cake on her plate. Eve’s timing might leave something to be desired, but at least she’d stopped Rose from eating the entire slice. “What do you want to know?” Eve’s expression was incredulous. “Everything, of course.” Then, as though realizing who she was talking to, she sighed. “Did you find him?” Rose nodded. “I did.” The fire in her cheeks burned hotter, and she looked away. “Oh, Eve!” Her friend grabbed her wrist, clattering fork against plate. “That arse didn’t hurt you did he?” “No!” Then lowering her voice, “And he’s not an arse.” Using such rough language made her feel daring and bold. The scowl on Eve’s face eased. “Then…he was good to you?” Rose nodded, leaning closer. “It was the most amazing experience of my life.” The blonde giggled, bringing her head nearer to Rose’s. “Tell me everything.” So Rose did, within reason, looking up every once in awhile to make sure no one could hear. Afterward, when she was finished, Eve looked at her with a peculiar expression. “It sounds wonderful.” “It was.” Eve’s ivory brow tightened. “So, why do you sound so…disappointed?” Rose sighed. “It’s going to sound so pathetic, but when I saw Grey the next day he didn’t recognize me.” “But I thought you didn’t want him to know it was you.” Rose laughed darkly. “I don’t. That’s the rub of it.” She turned to more fully face her friend. “But part of me wanted him to realize it was me, Eve. I wanted him to see me as a woman, not as his responsibility or burden.” “I’m sure he doesn’t view you as any such thing.” Shaking her head Rose set the plate of cake aside, her appetite gone for good. "I thought this scheme would make everything better, and it's only made things worse." Worse because her feelings for Grey hadn't lessened as she'd hoped they might, they'd only deepened. Eve worried her upper lip with her bottom teeth. "Are you going to meet him again?" Another shake of her head, vehement this time. "No." "But. Rose, he wants to see you." "Not me, her." This was said with a bit more bitterness than Rose was willing to admit. He might have whispered her name, but it wasn't her he wanted to meet. Eve chuckled. "But you are her." She squeezed her wrist again. "Rose, don't you see? You're who he wants to see again, whether he knows it was you or not." Rose hadn't looked at it that way. She wasn't quite convinced her friend was right, but it was enough to make her doubt her own conclusions. She shook her head again. Blast, but she was making herself lightheaded. "I just don't know." "You'll figure it out," Eve allowed. "You always do.

The fact is,” said Van Gogh, “the fact is that we are painters in real life, and the important thing is to breathe as hard as ever we can breathe.” So I breathe. I breathe at the open window above my desk, and a moist fragrance assails me from the gnawed leaves of the growing mock orange. This air is as intricate as the light that filters through forested mountain ridges and into my kitchen window; this sweet air is the breath of leafy lungs more rotted than mine; it has sifted through the serrations of many teeth. I have to love these tatters. And I must confess that the thought of this old yard breathing alone in the dark turns my mind to something else. I cannot in all honesty call the world old when I’ve seen it new. On the other hand, neither will honesty permit me suddenly to invoke certain experiences of newness and beauty as binding, sweeping away all knowledge. But I am thinking now of the tree with the lights in it, the cedar in the yard by the creek I saw transfigured. That the world is old and frayed is no surprise; that the world could ever become new and whole beyond uncertainty was, and is, such a surprise that I find myself referring all subsequent kinds of knowledge to it. And it suddenly occurs to me to wonder: were the twigs of the cedar I saw really bloated with galls? They probably were; they almost surely were. I have seen these “cedar apples” swell from that cedar’s green before and since: reddish gray, rank, malignant. All right then. But knowledge does not vanquish mystery, or obscure its distant lights. I still now and will tomorrow steer by what happened that day, when some undeniably new spirit roared down the air, bowled me over, and turned on the lights. I stood on grass like air, air like lightning coursed in my blood, floated my bones, swam in my teeth. I’ve been there, seen it, been done by it. I know what happened to the cedar tree, I saw the cells in the cedar tree pulse charged like wings beating praise. Now, it would be too facile to pull everything out of the hat and say that mystery vanquishes knowledge. Although my vision of the world of the spirit would not be altered a jot if the cedar had been purulent with galls, those galls actually do matter to my understanding of this world. Can I say then that corruption is one of beauty’s deep-blue speckles, that the frayed and nibbled fringe of the world is a tallith, a prayer shawl, the intricate garment of beauty? It is very tempting, but I cannot. But I can, however, affirm that corruption is not beauty’s very heart and I can I think call the vision of the cedar and the knowledge of these wormy quarryings twin fjords cutting into the granite cliffs of mystery and say the new is always present simultaneously with the old, however hidden. The tree with the lights in it does not go out; that light still shines on an old world, now feebly, now bright. I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.

Well, what if they do come? What will they want of you?" "To be what I was." The desolation of his voice chilled her. She was silent, trying to remember what it was like to have been powerful, to be the Eaten One, the One Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, and then to lose that, throw it away, become only Tenar, only herself. She thought about how it was to have been a woman in the prime of life, with children and a man, and then to lose all that, becoming old and a widow, powerless. But even so she did not feel she understood his shame, his agony of humiliation. Perhaps only a man could feel so. A woman got used to shame.

It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” - Cardan

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done — "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun." The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead — There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: If this were only cleared away,' They said, it would be grand!' If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, That they could get it clear?' I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.' The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head — Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat — And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more — All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!' No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed — Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.' But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue. After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!' The night is fine,' the Walrus said. Do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!' The Carpenter said nothing but Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf — I've had to ask you twice!' It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!' The Carpenter said nothing but The butter's spread too thick!' I weep for you,' the Walrus said: I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none — And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

We were as hungry as hunters after a day of stalking prey. The word for Belinda's chicken, we agreed, was also epic, the meat deeply flavored, the rice flecked with tiny sour-sweet jewel-red barberries, and mined with woody spices you had to pluck out---cinnamon sticks, cloves, and black cardamom pods as big and wrinkled as prunes. "This could be the best thing I have ever eaten," said Jennie. "It's right up there," I said. "The food writer agrees!" Jennie said. "Did you hear that, Belinda?" "I just followed the recipe," said Belinda. "Anybody could make it." Not true. Not everybody used quality organic chicken, high-grade extra-long basmati rice, hard-to-find black cardamom pods. The parsley and cilantro from Belinda's own garden were more flavorful than supermarket varieties. And Belinda had the great cook's touch; her onions were expertly caramelized, her chicken well browned, her rice cooked to the right tooth... No, not everyone could make this.

Today I've prepared a dish I'm calling 'Sea Bass of Three.' The first is a citrus ceviche with yellow chilies and a hint of preserved lemon, to be eaten with plantain crisps on the left of your plate." Even from her vantage, Penelope could see Elijah had molded the ceviche into a vague fish shape that pointed to the center of the plate. "Next, in the center, is a pan-sautéed fillet of sea bass coated in chili de árbol, and paprika potatoes sliced and arranged to resemble fish scales," Elijah continued. Penelope's mouth watered at the sight of the fillet, which looked perfectly crisp and very much resembled a small fish. It again seemed to point to the third and final part of the dish, thanks to the way he'd arranged it all. "And for the final phase, you have a sea-bass-and-cod fritter with fresh coriander leaves, serrano chilies, and a pineapple, chili, and lime foam." The queen and the princess nodded and started to eat the ceviche. "Will you explain what you've done with the samphire?" Lady Rutland asked, pointing to the green seaweed that resembled very thin asparagus spears. "The samphire is meant to symbolize the sea, just as the pineapple foam is meant to suggest sea foam. I sautéed the samphire in a spiced butter," Elijah replied. Penelope grinned from her seat behind the Minstrels' Gallery's open door. He'd almost made it look like the fish (especially the potato-scaled fillet in the center) was still swimming in the sea. From what she could see, he'd dotted the foam in strategic places on the plate, including near the ceviche, so one could take a bite with a plantain crisp and the foam, or try it plain.

I was very close to the age where I would have been sent to train, but was saved from that fate when we were forced out of Pinyudo, all forty thousand of us, by the Ethiopian forces that overthrew President Mengistu. ... The area near the river was marshy and the group was soaked, wading through the heavy water. The river, when we arrived, was high and moving quickly. Trees and debris flew with the current. The first shots seemed small and distant. I turned to follow the sound. I saw nothing, but the gunfire continued and grew louder. The attackers were nearby. The sounds multiplied, and I heard the first screams. A woman up the river spat a stream of blood from her mouth before falling, lifeless, into the water. She had been shot by an unseen assailant, and the current soon took “her toward my group. Now the panic began. Tens of thousands of us splashed through the shallows of the river, too many unable to swim. To stay on the bank meant certain death, but to jump into that river, swollen and rushing, was madness. “The Ethiopians were attacking, their Eritrean cohorts with them, the Anyuak doing their part. They wanted us out of their country, they were avenging a thousand crimes and slights. I paddled and kicked. I looked again for the spot on the riverbank where I had last seen the crocodiles. They were gone. —The crocodiles! —Yes. We must swim fast. Come. There are so many of us. We’re at a mathematical advantage. Swim, Achak, just keep paddling. A scream came from very close. I turned to see a boy in the jaws of a crocodile. The river bloomed red and the boy’s face disappeared. —Keep going. Now he’s too busy to eat you. We were halfway across the river now, and my ears heard the hiss under the water and the bullets and mortars cracking the air. Each time my ears fell below the surface, a hiss overtook my head, and it felt like the sound of the crocodiles coming for me. I tried to keep my ears above the surface, but when my head was too high, I pictured a bullet entering the back of my skull. ... I pushed my face into the dirt, but secretly I watched the slaughter below. Thousands of boys and men and women and babies were crossing the river, and soldiers were killing them randomly and sometimes with great care. There were a few SPLA troops fighting from our side of the river, but for the most part they had already escaped, leaving the Sudanese civilians alone and unprotected. The Ethiopians, then, had their choice of targets, most of them unarmed. “they chased the Sudanese from their land with machetes and the few rifles they possessed. They hacked and shot those running to the river, and they shot those flailing across the water. Shells exploded, sending plumes of white twenty feet into the air. Women dropped babies in the river. Boys who could not swim simply drowned... Some of the dead were then eaten by crocodiles. The river ran in many colors that day, green and white, black and brown and red. “—Come here!" a woman said. I looked to find the source of the voice, and turned to see an Ethiopian woman in a soldier’s uniform. —Come here and I will help you find Pochalla! she said. The other boys began walking toward her. —No! I said. —See how she’s dressed! —Don’t fear me, she said. I am just a woman! I am a mother trying to help you boys. Come to me, children! I am your mother! Come to me! The unknown boys ran toward her. Achor stayed with me. When they were twenty feet from her, the woman turned, lifted a gun from the grass, and with her eyes full of white, she shot the taller boy through the heart. I could see the bullet leaving his back. His body kneeled and then fell on its side, his head landing before his shoulder. “Run! he said, grabbing my shirt from behind. We ran from her, diving into the grass and then crawling and hurtling away fom the woman, who was still shouting at us. "Come back!" she said. "I am your mother, come back, my children!

I mostly don’t like to imagine the life I could have had, the one without magic in it. The one where I went to a regular school and learned regular things. The one where I had a living father and mother. The one where my older sister was the weirdo. Where I wasn’t so angry. Where my hands weren’t stained with blood. I picture it now, and I feel strange, tense all over, my stomach churning. What I feel is panic. When the wolves come for that Jude, she’ll be eaten up in an instant—and wolves always come. It frightens me to think of myself so vulnerable. But as I am now, I am well on my way to becoming one of the wolves. Whatever essential thing the other Jude has, whatever part that’s unbroken in her and broken in me, that thing might be unrecoverable. Vivi is right; it cost me something to be the way I am. But I do not know what. And I don’t know if I can get it back. I don’t even know if I want it.” Excerpt From: Holly Black. “The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air)”. Apple Books.

Oh well, at least I'll get a 90 minute break until the next feed. That's when my lactation consultant delivered the real tit-punch. The every-90-minute stopwatch does not start from the end of one feeding. It starts from: the beginning. I've never been great at math but if you're supposed to feed a baby every 90 minutes from the moment they start eating, and the feeding takes 90 minutes, then you are feeding a baby every minute of every hour of every 24 hour day. If I could've fainted when I heard this news I would have, but since I was already dead, I couldn't. I was in a very real sense being eaten alive.

Tomoe Akagi is known in artistic circles for having beat Nam June Paik to be the first person to perform a work of art inside a whale. Though, I don't think Paik actually wanted to create work inside a whale. His work, Creep into the Vagina of a Live Whale, was about creating an impossible piece of performance art, one that wasn't to be attempted, and could exist only in the minds of the audience. As readers of that instruction, we inevitably imagine ourselves parting the soft flesh of a whale without her noticing, a corridor opening up, stepping inside, breaking through her hymen, creeping into her uterus. I couldn't work out how I felt about this work when I read it for the first time; I remember her thinking, Ugh, of course he has chosen a female animal, and of course he has us enter her without her realizing. I couldn't tell what the point of the work was. It seemed to only exist to be shocking. Akagi had sewn himself into the stomach of a deceased beached whale somewhere in Scandinavia, where whale meat is eaten, and, after that, he was known as the artist who beat Nam June Paik. Unlike that of the other Fluxus artists, Akagi's work wasn't completely nihilistic; he wrote a long letter to the whale, apologizing for his generation's mistreatment of the environment, and sewed it into the whale's stomach with himself.

The magic just wouldn't work! I could feel it there but it just wouldn't come out!' 'Perhaps you were trying too hard,' said Granny. 'Magic's like fishing. Jumping around and splashing never caught any fish, you have to bide quiet and let it happen natural.' 'And then everyone laughed at me! Someone even gave me a sweet!' 'You got some profit out of the day, then,' said Granny. 'Granny!' said Esk accusingly. 'Well, what did you expect?' she asked. 'At least they only laughed at you. Laughter don't hurt. You walked up to chief wizard and showed off in front of everyone and only got laughed at? You're doing well, you are. Have you eaten the sweet?' Esk scowled. 'Yes.' 'What kind was it?' 'Toffee.' 'Can't abide toffee.' 'Huh,' said Esk, 'I suppose you want me to get peppermint next time?' 'Don't you sarky me, young-fellow-melass. Nothing wrong with peppermint. Pass me that bowl.

Conservatism" in America's politics means "Let's keep the niggers in their place." And "liberalism" means "Let's keep the knee-grows in their place-but tell them we'll treat them a little better; let's fool them more, with more promises." With these choices, I felt that the American black man only needed to choose which one to be eaten by, the "liberal" fox or the "conservative" wolf-because both of them would eat him. I didn't go for Goldwater any more than for Johnson-except that in a wolf's den, I'd always known exactly where I stood; I'd watch the dangerous wolf closer than I would the smooth, sly fox. The wolf's very growling would keep me alert and fighting him to survive, whereas I might be lulled and fooled by the tricky fox. I'll give you an illustration of the fox. When the assassination in Dallas made Johnson President, who was the first person he called for? It was for his best friend, "Dicky"-Richard Russell of Georgia. Civil rights was "a moral issue," Johnson was declaring to everybody-while his best friend was the Southern racist who led the civil rights opposition. How would some sheriff sound, declaring himself so against bank robbery-and Jesse James his best friend? How would some sheriff sound, declaring himself so against bank robbery-and Jesse James his best friend? Goldwater as a man, I respected for speaking out his true convictions-something rarely done in politics today. He wasn't whispering to racists and smiling at integrationists. I felt Goldwater wouldn't have risked his unpopular stand without conviction. He flatly told black men he wasn't for them-and there is this to consider: always, the black people have advanced further when they have seen they had to rise up against a system that they clearly saw was outright against them. Under the steady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro, facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man for his freedom-long before it happened in the North. Anyway, I didn't feel that Goldwater was any better for black men than Johnson, or vice-versa. I wasn't in the United States at election time, but if I had been, I wouldn't have put myself in the position of voting for either candidate for the Presidency, or of recommending to any black man to do so. It has turned out that it's Johnson in the White House-and black votes were a major factor in his winning as decisively as he wanted to. If it had been Goldwater, all I am saying is that the black people would at least have known they were dealing with an honestly growling wolf, rather than a fox who could have them half-digested before they even knew what was happening.

Of course I knew what to expect. He told me the story of his reef. Very much as Blagden had told it. Shyly, at first, as though he felt I was too young to be interested, or, perhaps, that I was listening from the point of view of a mental specialist. Well, if that old man were mad, he certainly had a good excuse for his insanity. He spoke, as usual, with a simple, courtly precision; but it was his very directness that made that old horror live with a vividness that had never appeared in Blagden’s version. If I could have written it down, word for word, as he told it, you would have given me credit for an imaginative masterpiece. I can’t, alas! All that remains with me now is the incommunicable atmosphere of an actual, intense, lonely terror — so present and compelling that it swept all consciousness of my real surroundings, the whitewashed temple and the high festoons of exotic foliage, out of my mind. “At that point,” Shellis was saying, “I felt that the quartermaster and I were looking at each other almost greedily. We weren’t civilized human beings any longer — just hungry cannibals. I determined that if anybody were going to be killed and eaten I would rather it was I.” He told me these ghastly details with a detached and dreamy coldness.

I'd asked my father once what had possessed him to name me after a month, and particularly such a dead, frost-eaten month as January, and if there were any more normal-sounding names I could have instead. It is a good name, he'd said, rubbing his tattoos. And when I pressed him: Your mother liked it. The meaning of it. (Don't bother looking up the meaning. Webster's says: The first month of the year, containing thirty-one days. L. Januarius, fr. Janus, an antiquated Latin deity. How enlightening.)

The room, unused to human habitation, was cold and unaffable. But this was better than an affable man. ... How wonderful it would be, frankly, if everybody in the world would suddenly lose his sight or forget the existence of light. Immediately, there would be agreement about form. Everybody would accept the fact that a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread whether triangular or round. The girl a little while ago would have kept her eyes shut and listened to my voice. If she had, perhaps we could have become friendly and I could have taken her to the playground and we could have eaten ice cream together. Just because there was light, she heedlessly thought that a triangular loaf of bread was not bread but a triangle. This thing called light is itself transparent, but it apparently changes into something nontransparent.

He would never let us go. We were his belly slaves. We were all he had to do with his forever time. We would be forever with him, with the cavern-filling bulk of the creature machine, with the all-mind soulless world he had become. He was Earth, and we were the fruit of that Earth; and though he had eaten us he would never digest us. We could not die. We had tried it. We had attempted suicide, oh one or two of us had. But AM had stopped us. I suppose we had wanted to be stopped.

I opened the John Green and read the first five pages. At first, I mistook my stomach pain for the aftermath of a chilli garlic chicken curry I had eaten that night, and powered on past page one, wincing at the knots, until I arrived at page five and vomited blood over the e-reader in the shape of a fractured heart. I doubled over, howling in pain. I could not believe a book could be that appalling. I screamed out: ‘I called this book a daring take on a controversial topic! I said this was a brave and beautiful novel to be cherished for decades to come!’ I clutched my stomach and screamed. I ran out onto the street, shouting nonsense, assaulting people who tried to help, eventually passing out in a motorway layby, covered in slime and scum, having leapt into a polluted pond to cleanse myself of the foulness that had overtaken me. Then I entered the most horrific dreams, the content of which I am not prepared to speak about and that I will take to the grave.

The Tiger King’s Gift Long ago, in the days of the ancient Pandya kings of South India, a father and his two sons lived in a village near Madura. The father was an astrologer, but he had never become famous, and so was very poor. The elder son was called Chellan; the younger Gangan. When the time came for the father to put off his earthly body, he gave his few fields to Chellan, and a palm leaf with some words scratched on it to Gangan. These were the words that Gangan read: ‘From birth, poverty; For ten years, captivity; On the seashore, death. For a little while happiness shall follow.’ ‘This must be my fortune,’ said Gangan to himself, ‘and it doesn’t seem to be much of a fortune. I must have done something terrible in a former birth. But I will go as a pilgrim to Papanasam and do penance. If I can expiate my sin, I may have better luck.’ His only possession was a water jar of hammered copper, which had belonged to his grandfather. He coiled a rope round the jar, in case he needed to draw water from a well. Then he put a little rice into a bundle, said farewell to his brother, and set out. As he journeyed, he had to pass through a great forest. Soon he had eaten all his food and drunk all the water in his jar. In the heat of the day he became very thirsty. At last he came to an old, disused well. As he looked down into it, he could see that a winding stairway had once gone round it down to the water’s edge, and that there had been four landing places at different heights down this stairway, so that those who wanted to fetch water might descend the stairway to the level of the water and fill their water pots with ease, regardless of whether the well was full, or three-quarters full, or half full or only one-quarter full. Now the well was nearly empty. The stairway had fallen away. Gangan could not go down to fill his water jar so he uncoiled his rope, tied his jar to it and slowly let it down. To his amazement, as it was going down past the first landing place, a huge striped paw shot out and caught it, and a growling voice called out: ‘Oh Lord of Charity, have mercy! The stair is fallen. I die unless you save me! Fear me not.

Don’t even think about it, Mimi. You are not coming out with me if you have garlic breath.”   “But I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. I could brush my teeth twice,” I offered.   “No. We don’t have time. You haven’t even finished your costume yet. We’re in and out, OK? Maybe Rachel’ll put some in the fridge for you.”   “You’re heartless.”   “Like that’s news to anyone. Stop whining.”   Rachel poked her head out of the kitchen, a baguette in her hand. She pointed it at Jack. Pointing is a Luci-family thing. Beatrice does it too, only she’s usually holding a sharp dental instrument, so it’s considerably scarier.   “Are you bullying Mio again?” Rachel demanded. The warm light from the kitchen made her pale brown skin glow, and her long, toffee-coloured hair – the same colour as Jack’s before she bleached it – gleam. Jack and Rachel’s grandmother was from Barbados, which means they both have an amazing all-year-round golden tan. Unlike me. According to the manga I read, if I lived in Japan, my naturally pale skin would be totally sexy. Shame it only counts as pasty in the UK.   “No,” Jack said.   “Yes.” I did my pitiful expression. “She won’t let me have any dinner.”   Behind trendy square glasses, Rachel narrowed her eyes at her sister. “If you’re thinking of developing an eating disorder, you’d better know right now that I will intervention your ass off, Jacqueline.” Rachel is a graduate psychology student. She likes to work that into the conversation as often as she can.   “Oh, save it,” Jack said, yawning for effect. “We’re just in a rush, that’s all. We’ve got a party to go to.

Now there was nothing left of her life, disease had consumed her, eaten up her body, leaving only shaking and fits. It was hard to believe when I saw her sitting there asleep with her mouth agape that her strong will, which couldn't even rule her body now, and her strict morality, which she was no longer able to express, could have left such a deep mark on her children. But it had.

Uggggh …” groaned Alex, clutching her stomach. She had one more cake left in her pile, but her opponent had one more cake in his pile as well, and he’d already started to eat it. Alex’s eyes were rolling into the back of her head, and her skin was even paler than usual. “Alex, you can give up if you want to,” said Dave. “Don’t make yourself sick.” “Yes, we won’t think any less of you, dear girl,” said Porkins. “I’ll think less of you,” said Carl. “Carl!” said Dave. “What?” said Carl, shrugging. “I’m only being honest.” The elderly cowman was halfway through his last cake, and Alex hadn’t even started hers. It’s all over, thought Dave. There’s no way that Alex can catch up. Alex looked like she was going to pass out at any moment, but then, finding strength from somewhere, she picked up her final cake and opened her mouth wide. FLOOOONCH!!!!!! To Dave’s amazement, Alex shoved the entire cake into her mouth. Her cheeks were so stuffed full of cake that her head was about twice as wide as it usually was. Then, with a large gulp, she swallowed the cake down whole. She opened her mouth to show everyone that the cake was gone. “We have a winner!” The cowman hosting the competition shouted. Everyone in the inn let out an enormous cheer. The elderly cowman dropped the remainder of his cake on the table, admitting defeat. “Well done, dear girl!” Porkins said to Alex. “Yeah, well done, Alex,” said Carl. “If ever I need someone to eat a big pile of cakes, you’ll be the first person I ask.” “I still think this whole competition was completely foolish,” said Spidroth. “Nevertheless, Alex, I congratulate you on your victory. Like a true warrior, you bested all your opponents, showing them no mercy.” “Uggghh …” groaned Alex. Then she fainted, her face hitting the table. “Alex!” yelled Dave, rushing over to her. “Is anyone here a healer?” “I am,” said a cowman with grey fur, rushing over. “What’s wrong with her, Doctor?” asked Porkins. “My diagnosis is that she’s eaten too many cakes,” said the cowman healer, lifting Alex’s head. “I could have told you that,” said Carl, rolling his eyes. “What should we do with her?” asked Dave. “I think a good night’s rest should do the trick,” said the healer. “Are you sure you’re a healer?” said Carl. “None of this advice seems very professional.

In the thousands of years before European colonists landed in the West, the area that would come to be occupied by the United States and Canada produced only a handful of lasting foods---strawberries, pecans, blueberries, and some squashes---that had the durability to survive millennia. Mexico and South America had a respectable collection, including corn, peppers, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, pineapples, and peanuts. But the list is quaint when compared to what the other side of the world was up to. Early civilizations in Asia and Africa yielded an incalculable bounty: rice, sugar, apples, soy, onions, bananas, wheat, citrus, coconuts, mangoes, and thousands more that endure today. If domesticating crops was an earth-changing advance, figuring out how to reproduce them came a close second. Edible plants tend to reproduce sexually. A seed produces a plant. The plant produces flowers. The flowers find some form of sperm (i.e., pollen) from other plants. This is nature beautifully at work. But it was inconvenient for long-ago humans who wanted to replicate a specific food they liked. The stroke of genius from early farmers was to realize they could bypass the sexual dance and produce plants vegetatively instead, which is to say, without seeds. Take a small cutting from a mature apple tree, graft it onto mature rootstock, and it'll produce perfectly identical apples. Millenia before humans learned how to clone a sheep, they discovered how to clone plants, and every Granny Smith apple, Bartlett pear, and Cavendish banana you've ever eaten leaves you further indebted to the people who figured that out. Still, even on the same planet, there were two worlds for almost all of human time. People are believed to have dug the first roots of agriculture in the Middle East, in the so-called Fertile Crescent, which had all the qualities of a farmer's dream: warm climate; rich, airy soil; and two flowing rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Around ten thousand years before Jesus walked the earth, humans taught themselves how to grow grains like barley and wheat, and soon after, dates, figs, and pomegranates.

Transmitted orally,” I translated for Eric and Katie. “That narrows the construct. It also explains how it was likely spread to farm animals through droppings from birds who’d eaten the infected fruit. Those crows that pecked at the migrant child could have gotten it directly into his blood. Get a PCR going, Hutch.” I glanced at our new friends. “That’s polymerase chain reaction. It creates more samples of the virus so we can study it in various growth media. And Hutch, do it in the level four lab. But don’t let Lauren get in there with you.

I LEFT FULING on the fast boat upstream to Chongqing. It was a warm, rainy morning at the end of June—the mist thick on the Yangtze like dirty gray silk. A car from the college drove Adam and me down to the docks. The city rushed past, gray and familiar in the rain. The evening before, we had eaten for the last time at the Students’ Home. They kept the restaurant open late especially for us, because all night we were rushing around saying goodbye to everybody, and it was good to finally sit there and eat our noodles. We kidded the women about the new foreign devils who would come next fall to take our place, and how easily they could be cheated. A few days earlier, Huang Neng, the grandfather, had talked with me about leaving. “You know,” he said, “when you go back to your America, it won’t be like it is here. You won’t be able to walk into a restaurant and say, ‘I want a bowl of chaoshou.’ Nobody will understand you!” “That’s true,” I said. “And we don’t have chaoshou in America.” “You’ll have to order food in your English language,” he said. “You won’t be able to speak our Chinese with the people there.” And he laughed—it was a ludicrous concept, a country with neither Chinese nor chaoshou. After our last meal the family lined up at the door and waved goodbye, standing stiffly and wearing that tight Chinese smile. I imagined that probably I looked the same way—two years of friendship somehow tucked away in a corner of my mouth.

Bottomless I took a deep breath. Olivia would be back. I suddenly felt so much better. I had plenty to do to keep myself busy while I waited. A shower was first on the agenda. I sniffed my shoulders as I undressed, but I couldn't smell anything but the brine and seaweed scent of the ocean. I wondered what Olivia had meant about me smelling bad. When I was cleaned up, I went back to the kitchen. I couldn't see any signs that Mr. Anderson’s child was eaten recently, and he would be hungry when he got back. I hummed tunelessly to myself as I moved around the kitchen. While Thursday's casserole rotated in the microwave, I made up the couch with sheets and an old pillow. Olivia wouldn't need it, but Mr. Anderson would need to see it. I was careful not to watch the clock. There was no reason to start myself panicking; Olivia had promised. I hurried through my dinner, not tasting it-just feeling the ache as it slid down my raw throat. Mostly I was thirsty; I must have drunk a half-gallon of water by the time I was finished. All the salt in my system had dehydrated me. I went to go try to watch TV while I waited. Olivia was already there, sitting on her improvised bed. Her eyes were liquid butterscotch. She smiled and patted the pillow. ‘Thanks.’ ‘You're early,’ I said, elated. I sat down next to her and leaned my head on her shoulder. She put her cold arms around me and sighed. ‘Bell. What are we going to do with you?’ ‘I don't know,’ I admitted. ‘I have been trying my hardest.’ ‘I believe you.’ It was silent. ‘Does-does he…’ I took a deep breath. It was harder to say his name out loud, even though I was able to think about it now. ‘Does Marcel know you're here?’ I couldn't help asking. It was my pain. I'd deal with it when she was gone, I promised myself, and felt sick at the thought. ‘No…’ There was only one way that could be true. ‘He's not with Chiaz and Esme?’ ‘He checks in every few months.’ ‘Oh.’ He must still be out enjoying his distractions. I focused my curiosity on a safer topic. ‘You said you flew here… Where did you come from?’ ‘I was in Denali. Visiting Tanya's family.’ ‘Is he here? Did he come with you?’ She shook her head. ‘He didn't approve of my interfering. We promised…’ she trailed off, and then her tone changed. ‘And you think Mr. Anderson won't mind my being here?’ she asked, sounding worried.

Here, you can share with me.” “No, that’s okay.” “I always bring extra for this reason.” “You bring an extra lunch to give away?” “Yeah, you never know who may not have lunch and may be afraid or ashamed to ask.” “Even for the jokers?” “No, they eat. They just want more. But if they hadn’t eaten, they could have it. It’s for anyone. I may not like a lot of the kids in here, but I don’t want them to go hungry.

Moreover, Nancy Sinatra was afflicted, as the overwhelming majority of Americans were, with monolingualism. Lana’s richer, more textured version of “Bang Bang” layered English with French and Vietnamese. Bang bang, je ne l’oublierai pas went the last line of the French version, which was echoed by Pham Duy’s Vietnamese version, We will never forget. In the pantheon of classic pop songs from Saigon, this tricolor rendition was one of the most memorable, masterfully weaving together love and violence in the enigmatic story of two lovers who, regardless of having known each other since childhood, or because of knowing each other since childhood, shoot each other down. Bang bang was the sound of memory’s pistol firing into our heads, for we could not forget love, we could not forget war, we could not forget lovers, we could not forget enemies, we could not forget home, and we could not forget Saigon. We could not forget the caramel flavor of iced coffee with coarse sugar; the bowls of noodle soup eaten while squatting on the sidewalk; the strumming of a friend’s guitar while we swayed on hammocks under coconut trees; the football matches played barefoot and shirtless in alleys, squares, parks, and meadows; the pearl chokers of morning mist draped around the mountains; the labial moistness of oysters shucked on a gritty beach; the whisper of a dewy lover saying the most seductive words in our language, anh oi; the rattle of rice being threshed; the workingmen who slept in their cyclos on the streets, kept warm only by the memories of their families; the refugees who slept on every sidewalk of every city; the slow burning of patient mosquito coils; the sweetness and firmness of a mango plucked fresh from its tree; the girls who refused to talk to us and who we only pined for more; the men who had died or disappeared; the streets and homes blown away by bombshells; the streams where we swam naked and laughing; the secret grove where we spied on the nymphs who bathed and splashed with the innocence of the birds; the shadows cast by candlelight on the walls of wattled huts; the atonal tinkle of cowbells on mud roads and country paths; the barking of a hungry dog in an abandoned village; the appetizing reek of the fresh durian one wept to eat; the sight and sound of orphans howling by the dead bodies of their mothers and fathers; the stickiness of one’s shirt by afternoon, the stickiness of one’s lover by the end of lovemaking, the stickiness of our situations; the frantic squealing of pigs running for their lives as villagers gave chase; the hills afire with sunset; the crowned head of dawn rising from the sheets of the sea; the hot grasp of our mother’s hand; and while the list could go on and on and on, the point was simply this: the most important thing we could never forget was that we could never forget. When Lana was finished, the audience clapped, whistled, and stomped, but I sat silent and stunned as she bowed and gracefully withdrew, so disarmed I could not even applaud.

It's you I love.'' he says. ''I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.

I just wanted to be quiet and alone – get my head around everything. Make sure I was really back to normal. I drank hot chocolate and … waited. I even slept for a bit. When I was sure nothing bad was going to happen, I came home. And, you know, found Mio nearly being eaten by a giant spider.”   “What? I didn’t see that!” Jack yelped.   “You were too busy grabbing the firebombs,” Hikaru put in. “I saw it, though. Rachel clocked it in the side and knocked it right off. It went flying.”   I gave Rachel a questioning look.   She shrugged again and put down her mug on the coffee table. Picking up an empty metal serving plate with her right hand, she poked it sharply with the index finger of her left. There was a rending noise, and Rachel’s finger popped out of the bottom of the plate.   “I’m pretty strong,” she said, with what I thought was epic understatement. “But I can control it now.”   Seeing the alarmed expressions on Hikaru and my dad’s faces, I quickly said, “The king – your king, Hikaru – told me this could happen. If people recover from the Nekomata’s bite, they have gifts. Seeing in the dark. Speed. Strength.”   “Let me get this straight,” Jack said slowly. “My sister is Catwoman now?”   “I suppose that makes you the Joker, then.” Rachel reached out to mess up Jack’s spiky hair.   Jack squeaked, trying to bat Rachel’s hands away. “Not the hair!”   “Oh, please. Try that on me when you don’t have an inch of roots.”   Hikaru leaned out of their way, looking confused and not sure if he should try to intervene. I could sympathize. Siblings were odd.

Poor trustful creatures! If I could have done it then, I would gladly have killed them rather than picture them starving on that floe out on the Ross Sea, or eaten by the exultant Killers that cruised around.

But it was a very different experience with Fitz. Especially when his finger accidentally grazed the edge of her lips. Not that he seemed to notice. He didn’t blush the tiniest bit—which was extra annoying, since she was certain her cheeks were neon red. “You’re helping me so you don’t have to take your own medicine, huh?” Sophie teased, ordering her head and heart to get their act together. This was one friend helping another—nothing more. Fitz confirmed it when he winked and added, “Also letting you test them all, so I know which ones are the grossest. Want this one next?” He pointed to a thick brown elixir. “I’m guessing it’s all kinds of wrong.” “Actually, that’s one of the good ones,” Elwin corrected. “It’s the shimmery pink one you should be afraid of. In fact, you’re probably going to need a chaser for that.” He reached into his pocket and pulled a handful of the silver-wrapped squishy candies he’d given Sophie before, setting them on the tray next to the vial in question. The elixir looked like melting sugar swirled with strawberry syrup—but when Fitz twisted off the lid, it smelled like a bathroom after someone had eaten a whole lot of asparagus. “Drink it fast,” Elwin recommended. “And hold your breath.” Sophie nodded, using her free hand to plug her nose as Fitz counted to three and tipped the medicine into her mouth—but her taste buds still immediately tried to convince her that she should spit the rotten sludge back out as fast as she possibly could.

That was just one of many weird things we have done. Even weirder to me than that, was the fact that we all talked about- like how it would be for one of us to die… if we would. Sex, drinking, and death were the main topics most nights. Yet that nightfall I do not remember how it came up in the conversations, other than Kenneth complaining that I got to sit in the front seat- aka ‘shotgun’ with Jenny after the party I guess I was where he thought he should be, and you know that wearing a seatbelt is for pussies. I do remember us talking about what a bucket let would be, yet to me, I thought mine was almost complete. The rap music was so loud, that we were yelling at one other just to overhear. Jenny kept going through her I-phone to change the song and text her other friends and boys, her phone was in her right hand in her lap. One reason I sat there is that- I was the one that was meant to pick the music so she could drive. I remember hearing the lyric- ‘To the window to the walls…’ the song was ‘Get Low!’ However, Jenny was so high, and Maddie was singing in the back to the words making her hands go in-between the front seats, and that was comical because she is as white as they come. I remember that is when we started shouting our theory on death and the afterlife, or if there is one. I thought there was… yet I was not sure. We were all gathering what those would be. Jenny was bitching about how it could be and going to be, in the ground, and like her beautiful body is going to be eaten away overtime in her sealed casket. That made my skin crawl. We were all like you’re going to die you’re not going to feel anything dumb ass. Then Maddie said my dying wish is to hook up with Lizzy, Sam, and others all at the same time and never stop. Hey, why not they were both very sexy hot girls. I could see that fantasy of doing it until death. I was a little pissed that I was not one of the girls in that scenario but it's her death wish not mine. Yet this is kind of surprising to me because Maddie was never that way at all. Like she has a boyfriend of two years. However, their love life was always on again and off again. The makeup hookups are all that kept them together… I think...? (#- Hashtag: Wcw- Women crush Wednesday)

to tease out the fictitious nature of this amiability was to have been what they called well brought up; to believe that amiability to be real was to lack breeding. I received, as it happens, a short time after this, a lesson that finally taught me, with the most perfect exactitude, the extent and limits of certain forms of aristocratic amiability. It was at a matinée given by the Duchesse de Montmorency23 for the Queen of England; a sort of small cortège had formed to go to the buffet, at the head of which walked the sovereign with, on her arm, the Duc de Guermantes. This was the moment of my own arrival. With his free hand, the Duc made, from a good forty meters away, innumerable gestures of summons and of friendship, which seemed to be saying that I could approach without fear, that I would not be eaten alive in place of the sandwiches. But, I, who was beginning to become word perfect in the language of the courts, instead of moving even a single step closer, gave a deep bow from my forty meters of distance, but without smiling, as I would have done faced with someone I hardly knew, then continued on my way in the opposite direction. I might have written a masterpiece, and the Guermantes would have done me less honor than for this bow. It did not go unobserved by the eyes either of the Duc, even though he had to respond to more than five hundred people that day, or of the Duchesse, who, having met my mother, recounted it to her, and, while being careful not to say that I had been in the wrong, that I should have gone up, told her that her husband had marveled at my bow, that it would have been impossible to make it any more expressive

I know how fortunate I am to have my health and my family and my jobs and my roof and my car and my democracy. I do know. I promise. And I know that saying out loud, “I think I might want a different life,” when you already have a perfectly good life is sort of like holding a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie in your hand while saying, “I don’t want a chocolate chip cookie. I think I want some other kind of cookie.” I know some people have no cookies. Unfortunately, having a fine life doesn’t exempt anyone from existential angst. Maybe it should. Maybe if we were all perfect people, we’d wake up in our nice warm beds, appreciate that we’re not waking up on concrete under an overpass, and cease fretting about our hopes and dreams, because if our basic biological needs are covered—food, shelter, water—what else could be so bad?

But among the elect, martyrdom is always a possibility; and to be an artist is not altogether a choice - the God of Art picks you, not the other way around. Therefore the artistic vocation has an aura of tragedy and doom about it. 'We poets in our youth begin in gladness,' said Wordsworth, 'But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.' Consider Franz Kafka's story, 'A Fasting-Artist.' The fasting-artist is an artist dedicated completely to his art. This art is grotesque: the artist stays in a cage and starves himself— much like a self-mortifying Christian ascetic of old — and at first he is very popular: crowds flock to marvel at him. Then fashions change - the art-for-art's sake fashion was by Kafka's time falling out of widespread favour — and the fasting-artist ends up in a neglected corner of a circus menagerie, and people forget he's in the cage. Finally they poke around in the rotten straw and rediscover him, more dead than alive. Here's what happens next: 'I always wanted you to admire my fasting,' said the fasting-artist. 'And we do admire it,' said the overseer obligingly. 'But you shouldn't admire it,' the fasting-artist said. 'All right, we don't admire it then,' said the overseer, 'but why shouldn't we admire it?' 'Because I have to fast, I can't help it,' said the fasting-artist. 'Whatever next,' said the overseer. 'And why can't you help it?' 'Because,' said the fasting-artist... 'I could never find the nourishment I liked. Had I found it, believe me, I would never have caused any stir, and would have eaten my fill just like you and everyone else.' Those were his last words.. .

We were quiet for a while after that. I looked around the visiting area. I had spent so much time here over the last few decades. I had eaten a lot of key lime pie out of the vending machine. And I had come to respect and love this man who sat in front of me. He was tired too, and I was just one of many battles he was fighting. We both deserved a win. It was time. And if it wasn’t, then I would take my Thursday. I would eat my last meal, and I would thank Lester for being the best friend a guy could ever have, and I would tell Bryan Stevenson that he couldn’t save everyone and I knew he had done everything he could. I would have joy knowing that I lived as big a life as anyone ever could live in a five-by-seven cell.

marry your father because you wanted to make him happy? You're a darling—a heroine—as Ellen would say, you're a brick. Now listen to me, very closely, dearest. Mary Vance is a silly little girl who doesn't know very much and she is dreadfully mistaken about some things. I would never dream of trying to turn your father against you. I would love you all dearly. I don't want to take your own mother's place—she must always have that in your hearts. But neither have I any intention of being a stepmother. I want to be your friend and helper and CHUM. Don't you think that would be nice, Una—if you and Faith and Carl and Jerry could just think of me as a good jolly chum—a big older sister?" "Oh, it would be lovely," cried Una, with a transfigured face. She flung her arms impulsively round Rosemary's neck. She was so happy that she felt as if she could fly on wings. "Do the others—do Faith and the boys have the same idea you had about stepmothers?" "No. Faith never believed Mary Vance. I was dreadfully foolish to believe her, either. Faith loves you already—she has loved you ever since poor Adam was eaten. And Jerry and Carl will think it is jolly. Oh, Miss West, when you come to live with us, will you—could you—teach me to cook—a little—and sew—and— and—and do things? I don't know anything. I won't be much trouble—I'll try to learn fast." "Darling, I'll teach you and help you all I can. Now, you won't say a word to anybody about this, will you—not even to Faith, until your father himself tells you you may? And you'll stay and have tea with me?

It was near midnight when his cell phone finally rang. Thank God, it was her. He answered the phone, short and sharp. “Jesus, Taylor, where have you been? You scared the hell out of me.” He heard the thickness in her voice, like she’d been crying recently. It broke his heart. Not a characteristic that was common to his woman. Weakness wasn’t her style. She spoke softly. “Don’t yell at me, okay? I’m fine. I’m heading home. I need sleep. I need to figure out what I’m going to do. I’m tired. Are you there?” “I am.” He softened his tone. “Have you eaten?” “I’m not hungry,” came the flat reply. “I could use a cigarette, though.

As someone that likes warmth, order, cleanliness, and safety on a regular basis, I’m always asking myself why I voluntarily decide to run every day. Did my feet really just decide to run 10 miles in the dark along the ocean, with only my reflective clothing as protection from danger? It couldn’t have been my brain that made that decision. But despite everything that could go wrong, I have a 100% track record of not getting eaten by bears, falling into ravines, or getting killed by murderers.

The next morning, elements of 23 Punjab who had survived the Dogra ambush were captured. The prisoners were herded on to a bridge and I saw a captain who was their adjutant. He was older than me and I asked him if he had eaten anything. ‘No, we’ve been on the run for the last two days.’ ‘Here,’ I reached into my bag and gave the captain a fistful of shakarpara. ‘Have some,’ I said, ‘these are our emergency rations.’ He stood there looking most uncertain, almost frightened, but he made no move to eat the shakarpara. He was just staring at them. The realization hit me suddenly: he thinks they are coated with poison! I reached out and took a couple of pieces from his hand and popped them into my mouth. The captain burst into tears. The other prisoners and my men had all been watching this little drama unfold. Almost to a man, our boys dug into their kit bags and gave the Pakistanis whatever they could find, a few men even sharing their water canteens. Their adjutant looked at me and said, ‘Thank you.’ I turned to walk away, but he put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You know, I was brought up to believe Indians were the biggest bastards—demons who were cruel and would torture us before killing us. Here you people are giving us your food and water.’ Tears were still streaming down his face. There was nothing to be said, so I moved away, leaving at least one Pakistani soldier to ponder the folly of it all.

Where were you going at nearly three in the morning, anyway?’ Max asked, standing up and holding out his hand, so he could tug Neve up too. She flushed a little. ‘Well, I was going to the all-night shop on Seven Sisters Road to get some food because I haven’t eaten in weeks,’ she admitted, and she didn’t want to ruin this before it had even started again, the same way she’d ruined it last time. ‘This is just a one-off. I’m done with detox cleansing, I swear, but I’m also done with eating crap at weird hours because we can’t get out of bed. Except for right now, because I am seriously contemplating cutting off my own hand and lightly sautée-ing my fingers in extra-virgin olive oil.’ Max stood poised on the step above her, brow furrowed as if he was trying to reach a decision about something. Probably that he didn’t want to be with her enough to deal with her dietary restrictions any more. ‘OK, then. If that’s the way you want it,’ he said, as if he was done deciding. He jumped down the steps, picked up Keith’s lead and headed for the gate, while Neve stood there watching in disbelief. It didn’t hurt any less having your heart broken for the second time. In fact, it hurt more, and … ‘You coming, or what?’ Max called, already walking down the street. ‘We’d better get a move on or they might have sold out of that disgusting bread that’s all seeds and nothing else.’ With a hand clutched to her heart, which had had more than enough shocks in the last twenty-four hours, Neve hurried after Max and Keith. ‘You’re such a drama queen,’ Max complained when she caught up with him. ‘No one could be that hungry unless they’d survived a plane crash and been stranded on a desolate mountain-top for days and the only thing standing between them and death was gnawing on one of their dead travelling companions.’ Neve punched him on the arm. ‘Are you joking? If the shop turns out to be closed after all, I expect you to sacrifice a couple of fingers for the cause,’ she said, as she slipped her hand into his.

I could do pizza,” I say it slowly, weighing my words. I’m going to regret it later because binging on pizza is a terrible idea with a weigh-in looming; I have to make my weight class or I’m fucked, but if this girl had suggested we eat a steaming pile of dog shit, I’d have gone along and eaten it without protest.

One of my favorite memories of Harriet was when John Edward, the psychic medium, came to the zoo. He found out almost by accident that he could read living animals. Everything Harriet communicated to him was absolutely spot-on. Although John hadn’t been to the zoo before, Harriet told him that she used to be in another enclosure and that she liked this one better. That made sense because her current enclosure was bigger. Harriet also said that she liked the keeper with an accent, but it wasn’t Australian or American. John was having trouble placing the accent, and then he met Jan, who was English. “That’s the accent,” he said. Turns out Jan had been taking care of Harriet since before I had ever visited the zoo. John also said that Harriet had had blood drawn from her tail--which was correct, since we’d done a DNA profile on her. One thing, though, John had wrong. “Harriet misses her blanket,” he said. “You know, John,” I said, “Harriet can’t have a blanket, because she tries to eat everything.” “She misses her blanket,” John politely insisted. After he left the zoo, I asked Steve about it. “Did Harriet ever have a blanket?” Steve laughed. “Nah, mate, she’d have just eaten it.” Weeks went by. I visited Steve’s dad, Bob, and told him about everything John Edward had said, right up to the blanket. “He was spot-on until he got to the blanket,” I said. Bob’s face widened with a big grin. “Actually, back in the eighties,” he said, “a woman knitted a blanket for Harriet. On cold nights, before we had given Harriet a heat lamp, we would put the blanket over her shell, hoping that it would help contain some of her heat during the night.” I laughed. I couldn’t believe it. Bob said, “Harriet had that blanket for weeks and weeks, until one day she tried to eat it. Then we had to take it away.

This is really good,” I murmur around my cake. Pete smacks Sam on the shoulder. “See, told you she would love it,” he says. Sam blushes and says, “It’s just a cake.” I point to the cake. “You did not make this.” More pink creeps up Sam’s neck. “Sometimes I bake.” He puts his hands on his hips and balks at me. “Real men bake cakes. And pies. And cookies. And other shit.” He waves a hand through the air as he scolds me. I had no idea Sam could bake. It’s really some of the best cake I have ever eaten. “Real men with really small dicks,” Pete says, holding his fingers about an inch apart. Sam punches his shoulder. “Ask your girlfriend about my dick,” Sam tosses back. “She seemed to like it a lot last night.” “Knock it off,” Paul scolds as he takes Hayley off the counter and sets her on the floor. “There are girls in the house.” “They don’t count as girls,” Sam says around a mouthful of pizza. “Well, thanks,” I complain. “You know what I mean.” Sam is still talking with his mouth full. Logan wraps his arms around my waist and places his chin on my shoulder. “Feels like a girl to me,” he says. He growls and nibbles on the side of my neck.

Seriously? You told him that?” Sophie bit her lip. “He sort of…pried it out of me. And then he wanted to go after Burke. I made him promise to stay away—well, not to kill him, but Sylvan went after him anyway.” “Really?” Olivia stared at her. “You mean he tracked down Burke after all these years and beat him up? That doesn’t sound like Sylvan to me.” “It’s not like him. At least, not as far as I can tell.” Sophie sighed unhappily. “I saw everything he did—he didn’t just beat Burke up—he broke his arm. A bad break. I could see the…the bones coming out of his skin all jagged and bloody…” The memory made her sick to her stomach and she shook her head, unable to continue. “A compound fracture, huh?” Olivia nodded thoughtfully. “That is bad.” “But that’s not all,” Sophie went on. “He also, uh, castrated him.” “He what?” Liv and Kat said together. “He did.” Sophie nodded. “With this little silver thingy. It was really small—it fit in the palm of his hand. But it burned Burke’s, uh, equipment right off. There was nothing left but a…but a scar.” She swallowed hard, willing her stomach to be steady. Considering the fact that she hadn’t eaten in well over twenty-four hours, she felt remarkably un-hungry. “I think I know what you’re talking about,” Liv said. “It’s mostly used for dermatological cases—when somebody needs a wart burned off or something. I never thought of burning off anything, uh, bigger.” “Well I guess Burke’s out of business.” There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Kat’s tone. “Permanently from the sound of it.” Liv laughed. “Good for Sylvan! I wish I could have seen it.” “I

Let me guess, you haven’t eaten.” “How’d you know?” She traced her fingertip over the edge of the empty shot glass. “I’m astute that way.” Tongue-tied, she picked up her water again and took a long gulp, draining it. The ice clinked as she placed it on the chipped counter. “Thirsty?” he asked, in a low voice that vibrated in her belly. She straightened and tried to look proper. “It’s important to stay hydrated when you get drunk.” He laughed. “And why the rush to get drunk, Princess?” “Stop calling me that.” The scowl she’d intended died halfway to her lips. Another meaningful glance at her attire. “If you don’t like being called a princess, maybe you shouldn’t wear such a sparkly dress.” “I suppose you have a point. I’m normally more of a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl.” The last shot of whiskey sat in front of her, and she took a little sip. A drop of alcohol clung to her lower lip, which she licked. His gaze tracked the movement, eyes darkening to burnished gold. The tip of her tongue stalled mid-swipe and retreated to press against her teeth. Was something happening here? Appreciating the view was one thing, but she needed to be good. She’d been good for a very long time and now wasn’t the time to break her streak. Maybe the alcohol was playing tricks on her, making her imagine things. She gave herself a tiny mental shake. “What’s your name?” he asked. He was a stranger. She shouldn’t tell him her name. She shot back. “What’s yours?” Again, the corners of his mouth twitched. “Mitch Riley.” She sighed. Well, now he’d been forthcoming so she had to tell him hers. “Maddie Donovan.” He held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Maddie Donovan.” She slipped her palm into his. His grip was warm and sure, and a tingle raced along her arm. She snatched back her hand as though she’d been burned. “Hard day?” he asked. “You could say that.” “Wanna tell me about it?” “No thank you.” “Don’t you know you’re supposed to confess to your bartender?

I’d been proud of the parlor, over which I had spent a great deal of time. The ceiling had inlaid tiles in the same summer-sky blue that comprised the main color of the rugs and cushions and the tapestry on the wall opposite the newly glassed windows. Now I sneaked a look at the Marquis, dreading an expression of amusement or disdain. But his attention seemed to be reserved for the lady as he led her to the scattering of cushions before the fireplace, where she knelt down with a graceful sweeping of her skirts. Bran went over and opened the fire vents. “If I’d known of your arrival, it would have been warm in here.” Bran looked over his shoulder in surprise. “Well, where d’you spend your days? Not still in the kitchens?” “In the kitchens and the library and wherever else I’m needed,” I said; and though I tried to sound cheery, it came out sounding resentful. “I’ll be back after I see about food and drink.” Feeling very much like I was making a cowardly retreat, I ran down the long halls to the kitchen, cursing my bad luck as I went. There I found Julen, Oria, the new cook, and his assistant all standing in a knot talking at once. As soon as I appeared, the conversation stopped. Julen and Oria turned to face me--Oria on the verge of laughter. “The lady can have the new rose room, and the lord the corner suite next to your brother. But they’ve got an army of servants with them, Countess,” Julen said heavily. Whenever she called me Countess, it was a sure sign she was deeply disturbed over something. “Where’ll we house them? There’s no space in our wing, not till we finish the walls.” “And who’s to wait on whom?” Oria asked as she carefully brought my mother’s good silver trays out from the wall-shelves behind the new-woven coverings. “Glad we’ve kept these polished,” she added. “I’d say find out how many of those fancy palace servants are kitchen trained, and draft ‘em. And then see if some of the people from that new inn will come up, for extra wages. Bran can unpocket the extra pay,” I said darkly, “if he’s going to make a habit of disappearing for half a year and reappearing with armies of retainers. As for housing, well, the garrison does have a new roof, so they can all sleep there. We’ve got those new Fire Sticks to warm ‘em up with.” “What about meals for your guests?” Oria said, her eyes wide. I’d told Oria last summer that she could become steward of the house. While I’d been ordering books on trade, and world history, and governments, she had been doing research on how the great houses were currently run; and it was she who had hired Demnan, the new cook. We’d eaten well over the winter, thanks to his genius. I looked at Oria. “This is it. No longer just us, no longer practice, it’s time to dig out all your plans for running a fine house for a noble family. Bran and his two Court guests will need something now after their long journey, and I have no idea what’s proper to offer Court people.” “Well, I do,” Oria said, whirling around, hands on hips, her face flushed with pleasure. “We’ll make you proud, I promise.” I sighed. “Then…I guess I’d better go back.” As I ran to the parlor, pausing only to ditch my blanket in an empty room, I steeled myself to be polite and pleasant no matter how much my exasperating brother inadvertently provoked me--but when I pushed aside the tapestry at the door, they weren’t there. And why should they be? This was Branaric’s home, too.

An odourless poison leaked out of him. His dearest childhood memories were of the practical jokes he had played on the servants. Stringing ropes to trip them up, setting off firecrackers under their beds, unscrewing the seat on the long drop. You could imagine that he had found his vocation in the process. His work, which involved jailing people for petty offences, was a malevolent prank. The way he spoke about it, forced removals, detention without trial, the troops in the townships were simply larger examples of the same mischief. I was struck by the intimacy of his racial obsession. His prejudice was a passion. It caused him an exquisite sort of pain, like worrying a loose tooth with your tongue or scratching a mosquito bite until it bleeds. In the mirror of his stories, however, the perspective was reversed. While he was always hurting someone, doing harm and causing trouble, he saw himself as the victim. All these people he didn’t like, these inferior creatures among whom he was forced to live, made him miserable. It was he who suffered. I understand this better now than I did then. At the time, I was trying to grasp my own part in the machinery of power and more often than not I misjudged the mechanism. Seid Sand, nicht das Öl im Getriebe der Welt, my friend Sabine had told me. Seid unbequem. Be troublesome. Be sand, not oil in the workings of the world. Sand? Must I be ground down to nothing? Should I let myself be milled? It was abject. Surely one could be a spanner in the works rather than a handful of dust? I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. These thoughts were driven from my mind by Louis’s suffering face, the downturned lips, the wincing eyes. Even his crispy hair looked hurt. You could see it squirming as he combed it in the mornings, gazing mournfully at his face in the shaving mirror. I could have shouted at him. ‘Look around you! See how privileged we are. We’ve all eaten ourselves sick, just look at the debris, paper plates full of bones and peels, crumpled serviettes and balls of foil, bloody juices. And yet we haven’t made a dent in the supply.’ The dish on the edge of the fire was full of meat, thick chops and coils of wors soldered to the stainless steel with grease. The fat of the land was still sizzling on the blackened bars of the grill. You would think the feast was about to begin." (from "Double Negative" by Ivan Vladislavic, Teju Cole)

Jake!” Max was the first to spot him. “Did you see us in the parade?” Ben asked. “Sure did, little man. It was the best car there.” “Have you eaten?” Meridith asked. “No, ma’am.” He noticed Meridith’s foot propped on a cooler, a bag of ice over the ankle. “What happened?” “Oh, she took a little stumble,” the brunette woman offered. “You okay?” Jake lifted the Ziploc bag. Her ankle was almost purple. “Ouch.” “Told you I was clumsy.” The word took him back to the dance lessons, and he could almost feel Meridith in his arms again. “Don’t

I would give anything for them not to be here now, not to have them. Don’t misunderstand me: it’s not that I suddenly regret having had them, their existence is vital to me and they’re what I love most, more even than Miguel probably, or, rather, I realize that their loss would have been far worse, the loss of either of them, it would have killed me. But I just can’t cope with them at the moment, they weigh too much on me. I wish I could put them in parentheses or into hibernation, I don’t know, send them to sleep and not wake them up until further notice. I’d like them to leave me in peace and not ask or demand anything of me, not keep tugging at me and hanging on me, poor loves. I need to be alone, without responsibilities, and not to have to make a superhuman effort of which I feel incapable, not to have to worry if they’ve eaten or are well wrapped up or if they’ve got a cold or a fever. I’d like to stay in bed all day or do what I like without having to concern myself about anything except me, and just get better gradually, with no interruptions and no obligations. If, that is, I ever do get better, I hope I do, although I don’t see how. It’s just that I feel so debilitated that the last thing I need is to have by my side two even weaker people, who can’t cope on their own and who have even less of an understanding of what happened than I do. More than that, I feel so sad for them, so unalterably, constantly sad for them, and that feeling goes beyond the present circumstances. The circumstances simply accentuate that feeling, but it’s always been there.

Tuesday Another good thing about going to camp is that I don’t have to be around my little brother for three weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I love my little brother. I just don’t like him very much. I mean he’s cute and fun sometimes, but most of the time he’s so annoying. He always takes my stuff, and then he breaks it.  When we play video games, Mom always makes me play the games he likes. And he also gets away with everything. Like when we get into a fight, Mom and Dad always take his side. They say that I should be nicer to him because he’s only four years old, but I know the truth. I know that he’s possessed by the spirit of a sixteen year old human demon, and only I can see it. But the part I hate the most about my little brother is that before he was born my Mom and Dad gave me all of their attention. Now, they give him all of the attention. Sometimes I don’t mind, because I don’t want my parent’s attention all of the time. But when I do want their attention, they’re either busy working or playing with my little brother. It’s kinda lonely sometimes. So, I guess three weeks away from my little brother is worth going to camp. Even if I am entering into a war of epic proportions. Hmmm. Maybe I should take my little brother with me and use him as a zombie shield? Naah, he’s too small. I’ll probably still get eaten. I could use him as ammo for my zombie catapult though…

I rolled the egg in my fingers, astonished by the purity of the light blue color and the symmetry of its shape. I found myself handling it delicately, as though afraid it might crack at my touch. This was more than just a beautiful object. Unlike all the other parts of birds, mammals, frogs, or snakes these young ravens might have eaten, this morsel still had a possible future. It could become a living bird. It had the potential to become a robin with a red breast who sings a beautifully melodious song at dawn. This egg was like the underdog kid who has beaten all the odds. The audience is cheering for him or her to continue, because he or she represents everyone’s hope. I gently placed the egg into my mouth, cradled it on my tongue, and took it down with me to find a robin’s nest and foster parents. Meanwhile,

The Connecticut River March 2, 1704 Temperature 10 degrees The Indians, it seemed, had paused here on their journey south from Canada to go hunting before the battle. Under the snow were stored the carcasses of twenty moose. Twenty! Eben had to count them himself before he could believe it, and even then, he could not believe it. Eben was no hunter. If he’d gotten one moose, it would have been pure luck. But for this war party to have killed twenty, dragged every huge carcass here so there would be feasting on the journey home--Eben was filled with respect as much as hunger. The Indians made several bonfires and built spits to cook entire haunches. They chopped the frozen moose meat, and Thorakwaneken and Tannhahorens sharpened dozens of thin sticks and shoved small cubes of moose meat onto these skewers. The women and children were each handed a stick to cook. The men were kept under watch, but at last their hands were freed and they too were allowed to eat. The prisoners were too hungry to wait for the meat to cook through and wolfed it down half raw. They ripped off strips for the littlest ones, who ate like baby birds: open mouths turned up, bolting one morsel, calling loudly for the next. When the captives had eaten until their stomachs ached, they dried stockings and moccasins and turned themselves in front of the flames, warming each side, while the Indians not on watch gathered around the largest bonfire, squatting to smoke their pipes and talk. The smell of their tobacco was rich and comforting. The wounded were put closest to the warmth, and hurt English found themselves sharing flames with hurt Mohawk and Abenaki and Huron. One of the Sheldon boys had frozen his toes. His Indian came over to look but shook his head. There was nothing to be done. Ebenezer Sheldon could limp to Canada or give up. “Guess I’ll limp,” said Ebenezer, grinning.

Madison had covered one side of the hall without success, and was just bending down to check the first locker on the other side, when a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks. “Looking for lunch money?” Jeremy asked. Madison’s face turned beet red. She slowly turned to look at Jeremy, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching her. “Of course not,” she said. “Lunch is over.” “Then what are you looking for?” he asked, strolling toward her. She folded her arms and stood her ground. “That’s none of your business.” “Actually, it is my business,” Jeremy replied. “That’s my locker.” “What?” Madison spun to look at the locker. There was no way she could have known. “Well, it’s not what you think. I-I’m not planning on stealing from you,” she stammered. “I’m just…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of a logical explanation for why she was standing alone in the hall with her hand on his locker. Jeremy leaned his shoulder against his locker and grinned. He looked like the cat who had eaten the canary. “You’re just what?” Madison gulped and looked up at the I’M STUCK ON MADISON sticker on Jeremy’s locker door. A lightbulb went on in her brain, and she tilted her chin in defiance. “I’m just removing this sticker from your locker.” She reached up and tore the decal off the locker. As she did, she spotted the phone number on the back and screamed, “I found it!” Jeremy jumped back two feet in alarm. “Could you shout a little louder?” he cracked. “I don’t think the hall monitor heard you.” “So what are you doing lurking out here?” Madison asked, cradling the sticker with Blue’s number in her hand, so Jeremy wouldn’t see it. Jeremy leaned in until his face was only inches from hers, and whispered, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.

The food barely filled me. I could have eaten forever, and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. Jami Attenburg, Protective Measures

The food barely filled me. I could have eaten forever, and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. Protective Measures, Jami Attenburg

shall have a twofold recompense.” The word recompense means “reward,” or “payment for past hurts.” Recompense reminds me of the word compensation. When I think of workman’s compensation, I think of payment made to a person who has been injured on a job. Likewise, if we get hurt while working for God, He takes care of us. If someone comes against us, hurts us, rejects us, or wounds us, we need to keep serving God and doing right, and He will make sure we get due compensation in the end. Realizing that I did not have to collect from people who hurt me was life-changing for me. The truth is, they couldn’t pay me. They could not give me back what they took from me, but God can always give you more than people take from you. We find another promise of reward in Joel: “And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten… And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame” (Joel 2:25–26, emphasis added). Note the words you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. This part of the promise means so much to me because I spent many years dissatisfied and discontent. No matter what I had, I wasn’t satisfied. No matter what anybody did for me, I wasn’t satisfied. No matter what I accomplished, I was not satisfied. Why? Because I was looking for people to satisfy me, but only God can satisfy. Whatever you have lost in your life, He will restore. That’s a promise. As you trust Him, He will make sure you “shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.

Hey, how are you?" they'd say. And I'd answer, "I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside out and I can't tell anyone what's going on because everyone is so grateful to me all the time and I'll feel like I'm ungrateful or something. Or like I'll give away that I don't deserve anyone's gratitude and really they should all hate me for what I've done but everyone loves me for it and it's driving me crazy." Right. Or should I have said that I wanted to die, not in the sense of wanting to throw myself off of that train bridge over there, but more like wanting to be asleep forever because there isn't any making up for killing women or even watching women get killed, or for that matter killing men and shooting them in the back and shooting them more times than necessary to actually kill them and it was like just trying to kill everything you saw sometimes because it felt like there was acid seeping down into your soul and then your soul is gone and knowing from being taught your whole life that there is no making up for what you are doing, your're taught that your whole life, but then even your mother is so happy and proud because you lined up your sight posts and made people crumple and they were not getting up ever and yeah they might have been trying to kill you too, so you say, What are you gonna do?, but really it doesn't matter because by the end you failed at the one good thing you could have done, the one person you promised would live is dead, and you have seen all things die in more manners than you'd like to recall...

What do you want that couldn’t wait until the morning?” Arik asked as he led the way inside. The Pride’s king headed to the bar he’d had installed in the corner of his living room. He pulled a bottle of whiskey from a shelf. He poured them each a generous dollop. “I want permission to go after the Northern Lakes Pack.” “Am I going to regret asking why?” “They’re threatening Arabella.” “Who’s that?” “Jeoff’s sister.” Arik tossed back the fiery liquid before asking with a frown, “Why the fuck would I let you start a war over Jeoff’s sister?” “Because those pricks attacked us on home turf.” A snort escape Arik. “Ah yes, that puny attempt at a kidnapping. You caused quite a stir with your antics. Part of your stunt even made it onto YouTube before we could squash it. I had to have our PR department spin a Twitter thread on how it was part of a scene being taped for a movie.” “You can’t blame me for that. I had to stop them.” He did, but what he didn’t tell Arik was he’d never once thought of the repercussions of his actions. He saw Arabella in danger and had to go to her rescue. Bystanders and witnesses be damned. “I can see why you’d feel like you had to act. I mean, they made you look silly by catching you off guard like that, but, next time, could you be a little more discreet?” “No.” Why lie? The reply took his leader aback. “What do you mean no? Discretion is a fact of life. One girl isn’t worth drawing undue attention to ourselves.” “One girl might not be, but my mate is.” Want to stop conversation dead? Drop a bombshell. “Close your mouth, Arik, before you catch flies.” Only Arik’s mate could hope to tease him like that and get away with it. Dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, Kira emerged from the bedroom and perched on a barstool. “Did you hear what he said?” a still astonished Arik demanded. “Yes. He’s fallen victim to the love bug. I think it’s cute.” “I would have said impossible,” Arik muttered. “You and me both, old friend. But, the fact of the matter is, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that Arabella is supposed to be mine.” “And the one percent that isn’t sure?” “Is going to get eaten by my lion.

Narian was walking restlessly around his parlor when I entered, and my worry increased tenfold. Was he moving about because he was in pain? I glanced around the room, noticing an empty wineglass and a half-eaten bowl of soup. “You’re out of breath, Alera,” he said with a smile. “I hope that means your conversation with Nantilam went well.” I hesitated, unsure how to begin, unsure how to tell him what she was demanding, what she had done to him. Unsure how to tell him she had meted out one last betrayal. “How are you feeling?” I blurted, and he laughed. “I’m fine, but you don’t seem to be. Come and talk to me.” He took my hand and led me to the sofa, pulling me down to sit beside him. He winced as he did so, an indication he was experiencing some discomfort. I brushed his hair off his forehead, subtly checking for a fever, then told him of the High Priestess’s desires. “The terms of the actual treaty are not a problem, Narian, but Nantilam won’t enter into it unless you agree to make Cokyri your home. She wants to control your power, now and in the future, even to the point of progeny.” “Alera,” he calmly said, taking both my hands in his. “Those decisions are not hers to make. Besides, she’s a little late.” “I don’t understand.” He looked at me, bemused, then rolled up his right shirtsleeve, revealing an intricate tattoo encircling his forearm just below the elbow--the Cokyrian symbol that a man was voluntarily bound to a woman. I stared at it; I stared at him; and I burst into tears. His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he nonetheless took me into his arms. “That’s not the reaction I expected,” he drolly commented, “but it’s convinced me something is wrong.” “How….are…you…feeling?” I managed between sobs. “You’ve already asked me that, and I’m fine.” When I finally had my weeping under control, words tumbled from my mouth. “Even if the revolt has been successful, the High Priestess won’t enter into a treaty unless you stay in Cokyri. Otherwise, she’ll attack Hytanica again, and this time she will kill all of our military leaders and enslave my people. And she wants you to bind yourself to a woman of her choosing because if your powers pass to a child, she wants the child to be Cokyrian.” “That’s all well and good, but this time, she won’t be able to have things her way. There’s no need for you to worry about this. We are strong enough to take her on, Alera.” “But we’re not.” I glanced once more toward the food he had been given, and a flicker of understanding appeared in his eyes. “We have no choice, Narian, because she’s poisoned your food and drink and only she can heal you. And I don’t know what to do, only that I cannot let you die!” “Shhh,” he soothed, holding me close, and I couldn’t understand how he could be so calm. Not when panic rose higher inside me with each passing moment. When I had quieted, resting with my head cradled against his chest, he tried to sort through the things I had said. “So Nantilam, in her wisdom, has linked Hytanican’s freedom to my willingness to stay in Cokyri, and she has effectively taken me out of the fighting by poisoning my food?” I shudder, then nodded. “If I stay here, she is willing to sign a treaty, but if I’m not, she will never relinquish Hytanica and I won’t be around to prevent it.” “Yes,” I murmured. “So she is tearing us apart, dictating the rest of my life and we have to go along with it or she will destroy Hytanica?” “Yes. And we’re running out of time.” He shook his head in awe. “I have to hand it to her, Alera. She’s ruthless in pursuing what she wants.” “This is serious, Narian.” I found his attitude almost irritating. He obviously understood the direness of his situation, yet was acting like it was only a game. “I know it’s serious, but there is only one choice as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to live without you, Alera. I won’t live without you.

Have you eaten yet?” I heard Jack ask. “Other than snack food from the minibar, no.” “Do you want to go out to dinner?” “With you?” Caught off guard by the question, I looked at him in surprise. “You must be having a slow night. Don’t you have a harem to get back to or something?” Jack regarded me with narrowed eyes. I was instantly contrite. I had not meant to sound bitchy. But in my current state of physical and mental exhaustion, I had no conversational red flags left. Before I could apologize, Jack asked in a low voice, “Have I done something to you, Ella? Other than help you get a hotel room, and agree to take an unwarranted paternity test?” “I’m paying for the room. And the paternity test. And if it was all that unwarranted, you wouldn’t be taking it.” “I may back out of it now. There’s only so much I’ll put up with, even for a free buccal swab.” An apologetic grin pulled at the corners of my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m hungry and sleep-deprived. I’ve had no time to prepare for any of this. I can’t find my sister, my mother is crazy, and my boyfriend is in Austin. So I’m afraid you’re dealing with all my accumulated frustration. And I think on a subconscious level, you represent all the guys who might have knocked up my sister.” Jack gave me a sardonic glance. “It’s a lot easier to knock up someone when you actually have sex with her.” “We’ve already established that you’re not one hundred percent certain whether you slept with Tara or not.” “I am one hundred percent certain. The only thing we’ve established is that you don’t believe me.” -Jack & Ella

Here’s the thing about close combat in real life: It’s almost always over in a matter of seconds. Not like in the movies, where your hero has the luxury to strategize and maneuver and grapple for minutes on end. Fortunately, when your life is in danger, your brain kicks in. Deep inside your brain this little almond-shaped gland called the amygdala sends out the signal to make your body start pumping out dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol. Time seems to slow, your focus sharpens, you suddenly start perceiving way more stimuli than normal. Neurologists call this tachypsychia. Everyone else calls it the fight-or-flight response. Cavemen who didn’t have it got eaten by saber-toothed tigers. So I made a quick decision. I could either be incapacitated by a Taser, or I could put myself within the reach of Bondarchuk’s fists. No choice.

Ms. Wu pressed on. “Elise, I wanted to talk to you because lately you’ve seemed a little … off. Less engaged than you used to be. Maybe even exhausted. Is there anything you want to talk about? Any problems at home?” This woman. This horrifying woman. With her muted sweaters and her sensible heels. All those times I had eaten lunch in her classroom, watching videos of Mandelbrot sets on her computer, she was secretly, insidiously, monitoring me. Any problems at home? Please. Sally has parents who won’t let her read any books with sex in them, and everybody knows that Emily Wallace’s mother made her get a boob job when she was a freshman; meanwhile, my dad buys me DJ equipment, and my mom wants only for me to be an educated member of a working democracy—yet I get asked if I have any problems at home? I bet I do seem exhausted, Ms. Wu. I bet I do seem less engaged. I was up all night, doing something that I really love, and I’m sorry, but I just didn’t reserve enough energy to fully participate in this miserable, mandatory little exercise in public education. Since discovering Start, I had felt, for the first time in years, like good things could happen to me. I felt happy. Yet somehow, for the first time in years, someone was bothering to ask me what was wrong. Where were you in September, Ms. Wu? Where were you last spring? Where were you when I needed you?

o resume: 2 It is often said—and even more often screamed at anti–gay marriage rallies outside the statehouse in Lansing—that I created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. 3 Wrong. 4 Now will I tell the story of the first man, Adam; and of the companion I fashioned for him, Steve; and of the great closeting that befell their relationship. 5 For after I created the earth, and sea, and every plant and seed and beast of the field and fowl of the air, and had the place pretty much set up, I saw that it was good; 6 But I also saw, that by way of oversight it made administrative sense to establish a new middle-managerial position. 7 So as my final act of Day Six, I formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils; and I called him Adam, to give him a leg up alphabetically. 8 And lo, I made him for my image; not in my image, but for my image; because with Creations thou never gettest a second chance to make a first impression; 9 And so in fashioning him I sought to make not only a responsible planetary caretaker, but also an attractive, likeable spokesman who in the event of environmental catastrophe could project a certain warmth. 10 To immediately assess his ability to function in my absence, I decided to change my plans; for I had intended to use Day Seven to infuse the universe with an innate sense of compassion and moral justice; but instead I left him in charge and snoozed. 11 And Adam passed my test; yea, he was by far my greatest achievement; he befriended all my creatures, and named them, and cared for them; and tended the Garden most skillfully; for he had a great eye for landscape design. 12 But I soon noticed he felt bereft in his solitude; for oft he sighed, and pined for a helpmeet; and furthermore he masturbated incessantly, until he had well-nigh besplattered paradise. 13 So one night I caused him to fall into a deep sleep; fulsomely did I roofie his nectar; and as he slept, I removed a rib, though not a load-bearing one. 14 And from this rib I fashioned a companion for him; a hunk, unburdened by excess wisdom; ripped, and cut, and hung like unto a fig tree before the harvest; 15 Yea, and a power bottom. 16 And Adam arose, and saw him, and wept for joy; and he called the man Steve; I had suggested Steven, but Adam liked to keep things informal. 17 And Adam and Steve were naked, and felt no shame; they knew each other, as often as possible; truly their loins were a wonderland. 18 And they were happy, having not yet eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge That Your Lifestyle Is Sinful.

What is the best thing you've ever eaten?" Poulet rôti. I was sure that my mother was going to say the poulet rôti from L'Ami Louise in Paris because she'd sat next to Jacques Chirac there and he'd said that since she was a chef, perhaps she would cook something for him. And so she did. She went right back into the kitchen and whipped up something fabulous. After that, they used goose as well as duck fat when frying their potatoes, because it had been her way. I mouthed Poulet rôti into the pillow. But my mother was quiet. She could have made conversation, little noises while she was thinking. But she didn't. Lou didn't care. "Masgouf," she said. "From an Iraqi restaurant that's closed now." I sat up. I opened my mouth. I almost yelled, What? But she was still talking. "I went there with her dad years and years ago." I imagined her jerking her thumb in the direction of my room. "The company was like watching paint dry, but the food was fantastic. Out of this world." "And?" Lou said. "And," my mother said, "I went back a couple of years ago, just to see, and it was closed up. Totally empty and sad. One silver tray sat in the middle of the place, I remember. Broke my heart to pieces." "Masgouf?" Lou said. I was already out of bed, sockless and by the bookshelf, ripping through the index of The Joy of Cooking, then Cook Everything, then, finally, Recipes from All Over. I found it. "'Traditional Iraqi fish dish, grilled with tamarind and/or lemon, salt, and pepper,'" I whispered, shocked. "It was heaven," my mother said. "Literally heaven. I've tried to replicate it, I can't tell you how many times." For a second, I saw spots. I would have bet my life on it- on the poulet rôti. "You know how they say that life imitates art?" my mother said. "Well, life imitated masgouf. The fish was so good, so tender, and we ate it with our fingers. For a little while, I convinced myself that life could be so simple." Which meant happiness. Masgouf was my mother's happiness.

A man can survive ten years--but twenty-five, who can get through alive? Shukhov rather enjoyed having everybody poke a finger at him as if to say: Look at him, his term's nearly up. But he had his doubts about it. Those zeks who finished their time during the war had all been "retained pending special instructions" and had been released only in '46. Even those serving three-year sentences were kept for another five. The law can be stood on its head. When your ten years are up they can say, "Here's another ten for you." Or exile you. Yet there were times when you thought about it and you almost choked with excitement. Yes, your term really _is_ coming to an end; the spool is unwinding. . . . Good God! To step out to freedom, just walk out on your own two feet. But it wasn't right for an old-timer to talk about it aloud, and Shukhov said to Kilgas: "Don't you worry about those twenty-five years of yours. It's not a fact you'll be in all that time. But that I've been in eight full years--now that is a fact." Yes, you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out. According to his dossier, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov had been sentenced for high treason. He had testified to it himself. Yes, he'd surrendered to the Germans with the intention of betraying his country and he'd returned from captivity to carry out a mission for German intelligence. What sort of mission neither Shukhov nor the interrogator could say. So it had been left at that- -a mission. Shukhov had figured it all out. If he didn't sign he'd be shot If he signed he'd still get a chance to live. So he signed. But what really happened was this. In February 1942 their whole army was surrounded on the northwest front No food was parachuted to them. There were no planes. Things got so bad that they were scraping the hooves of dead horses--the horn could be soaked In water and eaten. Their ammunition was gone. So the Germans rounded them up in the forest, a few at a time. Shukhov was In one of these groups, and remained in German captivity for a day or two. Then five of them managed to escape. They stole through the forest and marshes again, and, by a miracle, reached their own lines. A machine gunner shot two of them on the spot, a third died of his wounds, but two got through. Had they been wiser they'd have said they'd been wandering in the forest, and then nothing would have happened. But they told the truth: they said they were escaped POW's. POW's, you fuckers! If all five of them had got through, their statements could have been found to tally and they might have been believed. But with two it was hopeless. You've put your damned heads together and cooked up that escape story, they were told. Deaf though he was, Senka caught on that they were talking about escaping from the Germans, and said in a loud voice: "Three times I escaped, and three times they caught me." Senka, who had suffered so much, was usually silent: he didn't hear what people said and didn't mix in their conversation. Little was known about him--only that he'd been in Buchenwald, where he'd worked with the underground and smuggled in arms for the mutiny; and how the Germans had punished him by tying his wrists behind his back, hanging him up by them, and whipping him. "You've been In for eight years, Vanya," Kilgas argued. "But what camps? Not 'specials.' You bad breads to sleep with. You didn't wear numbers. But try and spend eight years in a 'special'--doing hard labor. No one's come out of a 'special' alive." "Broads! Boards you mean, not broads." Shukhov stared at the coals in the stove and remeinbered his seven years in the North. And how he worked for three years hauling logs--for packing cases and railroad ties. The flames in the campfires had danced up there, too--at timber-felling during the night. Their chief made it a rule that any squad that had failed to meet its quota had to stay In the forest after dark.