Im Harmless Quotes

I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called “going to sleep” but rather “passing out,” a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.

He grinned. “Busted. I’m a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless — and shockingly handsome — alter ego.” “And I’m on top of it,” she announced with witty triumph. “Is that a Freudian slip?” His bluntness caught her off guard. A self-conscious blush rose in her face.

Kaz narrowed his eyes. “I’m not some character out of a children’s story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor.

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word home means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were eight. See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate, and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms or would leave your snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name, and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel. Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would you whisper “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy!” Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me — how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god or if you believe in many gods or better yet what gods believe in you. And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you asked come true? And if they didn’t, did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key? And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence. Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do — I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving, and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds, and if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon — that if you wanted to, you could pop, but you never would ‘cause you’d never want it to stop. If a tree fell in the forest and you were the only one there to hear — if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: If you and I went for a walk and the entire walk, we didn’t talk — do you think eventually, we’d… kiss? No, wait. That’s asking too much — after all, this is only our first date.

Busted. I'm a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless-and shockingly handsome-alter ego.

Come work for me, and I’ll tell you.” My eyes went to his. “You are a thief, a cheat, a murderer, and a not-nice man,” I said calmly. “I don’t like you.” He shrugged, the motion making him look utterly harmless. “I’m not a thief,” he said. “And I don’t mind manipulating you into working for me when I need it.” He smiled, showing me perfect teeth. “I enjoy it, actually.

Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.

There’s something simmering inside of me. Something I’ve never dared to tap into, something I’m afraid to acknowledge. There’s a part of me clawing to break free from the cage I’ve trapped it in, banging on the doors of my heart, begging to be free. Begging to let go. Every day I feel like I’m reliving the same nightmare. I open my mouth to shout, to fight, to swing my fists, but my vocal cords are cut, my arms are heavy and weighted down as if trapped in wet cement and I’m screaming but no one can hear me, no one can reach me and I’m caught. And it’s killing me. I’ve always had to make myself submissive, subservient, twisted into a pleading, passive mop just to make everyone else feel safe and comfortable. My existence has become a fight to prove I’m harmless, and I’m not a threat, that I’m capable of living among other human beings without hurting them. And I’m so tired I’m so tire I’m so tired I’m so tired and sometimes I get so angry. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I'm serious," Lucien said as I lifted the glass to my lips, my brows raised. "Remember the last time you ignored my warning?" He poked me in the neck, and I batted his hand away. "I also remember you telling me how witchberries were harmless, and the next thing I knew, I was half-delirious and falling all over myself," I said, recalling the afternoon from a few weeks ago. I'd had hallucinations for hours afterwards, and Lucien had laughed himself sick-enough so that Tamlin had chucked him into the reflection pool.

None of those things should have mattered, but I guess they did. I guess they were like water. Soft and harmless until enough time went by. Then all of a sudden you found yourself with the Grand Canyon on your hands.

-You know how to call me although such a noise now would only confuse the air Neither of us can forget the steps we danced the words you stretched to call me out of dust Yes I long for you not just as a leaf for weather or vase for hands but with a narrow human longing that makes a man refuse any fields but his own I wait for you at an unexpected place in your journey like the rusted key or the feather you do not pick up.- -I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.- For Anyone Dressed in Marble The miracle we all are waiting for is waiting till the Parthenon falls down and House of Birthdays is a house no more and fathers are unpoisoned by renown. The medals and the records of abuse can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust, but like whips certain perverts never use, compel our flesh in paralysing trust. I see an orphan, lawless and serene, standing in a corner of the sky, body something like bodies that have been, but not the scar of naming in his eye. Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside. Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride. I Had It for a Moment I had it for a moment I knew why I must thank you I saw powerful governing men in black suits I saw them undressed in the arms of young mistresses the men more naked than the naked women the men crying quietly No that is not it I'm losing why I must thank you which means I'm left with pure longing How old are you Do you like your thighs I had it for a moment I had a reason for letting the picture of your mouth destroy my conversation Something on the radio the end of a Mexican song I saw the musicians getting paid they are not even surprised they knew it was only a job Now I've lost it completely A lot of people think you are beautiful How do I feel about that I have no feeling about that I had a wonderful reason for not merely courting you It was tied up with the newspapers I saw secret arrangements in high offices I saw men who loved their worldliness even though they had looked through big electric telescopes they still thought their worldliness was serious not just a hobby a taste a harmless affectation they thought the cosmos listened I was suddenly fearful one of their obscure regulations could separate us I was ready to beg for mercy Now I'm getting into humiliation I've lost why I began this I wanted to talk about your eyes I know nothing about your eyes and you've noticed how little I know I want you somewhere safe far from high offices I'll study you later So many people want to cry quietly beside you

Josh: "Mutley, my dog." Shel: "I am not getting in the car with that." Josh: "Yes, you are." Shel: "No, I'm not. He's huge." Josh: "He's harmless." Shel: "Like his owner?" Josh: "Oh, no, he's harmless. I'm not.

He's a gentle giant, harmless and soft, like a teddy bear. Except deep down, I know he's not. And when his eyes cut my way, and I see the darkness on the surface, I'm reminded that this man hangs out with monsters. And one might even exist inside of him.

I'm just going to pretend that a very good-smelling, incredibly warm stranger is sitting next to me, a harmless stranger.

I wish you would reconsider. I’m really harmless, until I’m disappointed.

For crissakes, you're the frickin' poster boy for DarkRiver with your 'Gee, shucks, I'm harmless' act." Dorian was used to being ribbed about his looks. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked more like a surfer hanging out for the right wave than blooded DarkRiver sentinel. "Look who's talking, Miss Bikini Babe 2067.

Bathing is even more embarrassing, because I have to strip down to my birthday suit in front of a nurse. Now, there are some things that never die, so even though I'm in my nineties my sap sometimes rises. I can't help it. They always pretend not to notice. They're trained that way, I suppose, although pretending not to notice is almost worse than noticing. It means they consider me nothing more than a harmless old man sporting a harmless old penis that still gets uppity once in a while. Although if one of them took it seriously and tried to do something about it, the shock would probably kill me.

I’m here for whatever you need, whenever you need, because you’re my best friend and my true love and I’ve missed you. Not having you in my life has been like losing a limb that no one can see is missing.

But truth be told, I'm not as dour-looking as I would like. I'm stuck with this round, sweetie-pie face, tiny heart-shaped lips, the daintiest dimples, and apple cheeks so rosy I appear in a perpetual blush. At five foot four, I barely squeak by average height. And then there's my voice: straight out of second grade. I come across so young and innocent and harmless that I have been carded for buying maple syrup. Tourists feel more safe approaching me for directions, telemarketers always ask if my mother is home, and waitresses always, always call me 'Hon.

I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It's a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it's not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, Fine, I'm feeling bad, but I've put the source of these fellings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usuallly extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then sooner or later, I forget about them.

Just because you’re, like, super powerful doesn’t mean people shouldn’t defend you.” But he was looking at her like she was a cute harmless little bunny that was obviously on drugs. She sighed. “You’re still not fearing my mighty wrath.” “I’m trying.” “One day I will unleash it and you will flee in terror. Why are you laughing? It’s only the truth. A sphinx in full-on berserker-mode can wreak major destruction and instill fear into the hearts of all who… stop laughing!

You terrify me.” She smiled, wiggling beneath him before pushing her pelvis up against his. “I’m harmless.” “You’re lethal.” “I’m waiting.

I'm not some character out of a children's story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor.

Well, you look well on it.' `I feel well. You look well.' `I'm well. I'm very well.' `Well, that's good.' `Yes.' `Good.' `Good.' `Nice of you to drop in.' `Thanks.' `Well,' said Arthur, casting around himself. Astounding how hard it was to think of anything to say to someone after all this time.

I mean, it's stupid to miss someone you didn't even get along with. But, I don't know, it was nice, you know, having someone you could always fight with." "Fighting," I said, and then, confused, barely able to drive, I added, "is nice." "Right. I don't know what I'll do now. I mean, it was nice to have her. I'm a mad guy, Pudge. What do I do with that?" "You can fight with me," I said. I put my controller down and leaned back on our foam couch and was asleep. As I drifted off, I heard the Colonel say, "I can't be mad at you, you harmless skinny bastard.

I'm sorry!" I blurted out. "I told you, I suck at this. It's like any time I try to do a spell, it goes all big and scary and explodey,and-" Dad rubbed his forehead. "No,Sophie, it's all right. That's what I'd hoped you would do." "You hoped I'd commit mirrorcide?" He laughed, but it sounded a little breathless. "No,I'd hoped to see just how powerful you really are." His eyes were bright, and there was something that might have been pride in them. "You exceeded my expectations." "Well,yay," I said. "So glad my skill at blowing crap up impresses you, Dad." "Your sarcasm is-" "I know,I know, 'an unattractive quality in a young lady.'" But Dad grinned and suddenly looked much younger and less like a guy who ironed his ties. "Actually, I was going to say it's something you must've gotten from me. Grace always hated sarcastic comments." "Oh,I know," I replied without thinking. "I spent most of the seventh grade grounded because of it." He snorted. "She once put me out by the side of the road in Scotland because I made a completely harmless joke about her map-reaking skills." "Really?" "Mm-hmm.Had to walk nearly five bloody kilometers before she stopped to let me back in." "Dude.Mom is hard-core." For a moment we smiled at each other. Then Dad cleared his throat and looked away. "Anyway,your powers are definitely impressive, but what you lack is control." "Yeah, I kind of picked up on that.

Clothes used to perplex me. I could never understand how to piece together an outfit the way Warner did. I thought it was a science I'd never crack; a skill beyond my grasp. But I'm realizing now that my problem was that I never knew who I was; I didn't understand how to dress the imposter living in my skin. What did I like? How did I want to be perceived? For years my goal was to minimize myself-- to fold and refold myself into a polygon of nothingness, to be too insignificant to be remembered. I wanted to appear innocent; I wanted to be thought of as quiet and harmless; I was worried always about how my very existence was terrifying to others and I did everything in my power to diminish myself, my light, my soul. I wanted so desperately to placate the ignorant. I wanted so badly to appease the assholes who judged me without knowing me that I lost myself in the process. But now? Now, I laugh. Out loud. Now, I don't give a shit.

You look so beautiful No one but me knows you're insane I feel so damn pathetic My friends just don't get it Cause you've got me under oath Before you I was in a fucking rut One day you are in the past That night I ask you back It started out just harmless fun Now you've got me thinking you are the one Cause if you wanna take me home You know I'm ready to leave You've got me under your spell Please don't set me free Cause I've been having all these nightmares Seeing you is my only way up Feeling so defenseless But I'm telling you I wouldn't change a thing You've got me feeling strange Cause I love to hate you so damn much But I can't think of leaving Cause you're what keeps me breathing It started out just harmless fun Now you've got me thinking you are the one Cause if you wanna take me home You know I'm ready to leave You've got me under your spell Please don't set me free Cause I've been having all these nightmares Seeing you is my only way up Feeling so defenseless But I'm telling you I wouldn't change a thing Cause if you wanna take me home You know I'm ready to leave You've got me under your spell Please don't set me free Cause if you wanna take me home You know I'm ready to leave You've got me under your spell Please don't set me free Cause I've been having all these nightmares Seeing you is my only way up Feeling so defenseless But I'm telling you I wouldn't change a thing

That was good of you.” Kaz narrowed his eyes. “I’m not some character out of a children’s story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor.

Scarlet could feel everyone’s curious gazes switching between her and the princess. She cleared her throat. “She’s harmless,” she said. “I’m pretty sure.” Winter

I assure you I’m quite harmless,” he said. “Unless prodded, provoked, or otherwise perturbed.” + + +

Though I’m old and blind, I promise to put up a worthy fight. Probably kill half of you. No matter how harmless I may seem, you better know the blood running in my veins is that of a Nephite.

It’s going to work.” “Classic,” Roarke said. “What’s going to work? What’s classic? I want my jacket.” “Forget it. You’re going to walk right up to Milo the Mole’s front door, and he’s going to answer.” “I am? He is?” “Damsel in distress, right?” Eve said to Roarke. “A very alluring damsel. Clever, Lieutenant.” “Oh, okay. I get it. I look like I’m in trouble—all alone, unarmed. Harmless. Girl. He opens up to find out what’s what. You should do it,” Peabody told Eve. “You’re the one with the tits. Men are stupid for tits.” “Harsh,” Roarke observed. “But largely true.” “Plus, you’re the type, obviously, who appeals to skinny geeks.” “Oh yeah,” McNab confirmed. “Completely.

Almsgiving is a major tenet of Islam. It's also a kick in the pants of the highest order. Nothing is as cool as skimming off a couple of hundred thousand from some multinational corporation and handing it out to random strangers. Or writing a harmless little virus that makes credit counters "forget" to send a surcharge back to the bank after each purchase. Oh, sure, technically I'm supposed to give away my own money, but whatever. I'm sure Allah gets the spirit of what I'm doing here.

Sometimes as I’m drifting toward sleep, in the beginnings of that dissolution, I wonder where I am, when this is, and realize that at these moments I could be anywhere, anytime, for all I know: eight and napping in the trailer, my broken arm in a cast, or thirteen at night clutching a pillow to my neck, or twenty in the arms of my boyfriend, or twenty-seven in the arms of my husband, or thirty-three next to my imaginary daughter; at every place in the whole spinning shape that is my life, when I am falling asleep, I am the same person, the identical awareness, the same fuzzball of mind, the same muck of nerves, all along the line. I forage through my life and everywhere—there, there, and there—it is only me in it, the very same me, the same harmless lump, the same soggy weirdo, the same sleeping, breathing bun.

The desire to make art begins early. Among the very young this is encouraged (or at least indulged as harmless) but the push toward a 'serious' education soon exacts a heavy toll on dreams and fantasies....Yet for some the desire persists, and sooner or later must be addressed. And with good reason: your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are. Life and Art, once entwined, can quickly become inseparable; at age ninety Frank Lloyd Wright was still designing, Imogen Cunningham still photographing, Stravinsky still composing, Picasso still painting. But if making art gives substance to your sense of self, the corresponding fear is that you're not up to the task -- that you can't do it, or can't do it well, or can't do it again; or that you're not a real artist, or not a good artist, or have no talent, or have nothing to say. The line between the artist and his/her work is a fine one at best, and for the artist it feels (quite naturally) like there is no such line. Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be. For many people, that alone is enough to prevent their ever getting started at all -- and for those who do, trouble isn't long in coming. Doubts, in fact, soon rise in swarms: "I am not an artist -- I am a phony. I have nothing worth saying. I'm not sure what I'm doing. Other people are better than I am. I'm only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever]. I've never had a real exhibit. No one understands my work. No one likes my work. I'm no good. Yet viewed objectively, these fears obviously have less to do with art than they do with the artist. And even less to do with the individual artworks. After all, in making art you bring your highest skills to bear upon the materials and ideas you most care about. Art is a high calling -- fears are coincidental. Coincidental, sneaky and disruptive, we might add, disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others -- indeed anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot. What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test.

55 But I was born for peaceful roaming, For country calm and lack of strife; My lyre sings! And in the gloaming My fertile fancies spring to life. I give myself to harmless pleasures And far niente rules my leisures: Each morning early I’m awake To wander by the lonely lake Or seek some other sweet employment: I read a little, often sleep, For fleeting fame I do not weep. And was it not in past enjoyment Of shaded, idle times like this, I spent my days of deepest bliss?

With two pit bulls in the house, we have a responsibility to make sure they’re always under control. I mean, we’re well aware of how sweet and harmless they are, yet the fact that they even exist intimidates others, so we train for our neighbors’ peace of mind. As an added bonus, the dogs love it!

He moves a stack of hardcovers off the sofa, then crosses the room to take the chair behind the desk. His expression seems to tease, See? I’m perfectly harmless over here. Except nothing about him looks harmless to me. He looks like a Swiss Army knife. A man with six different means to undo me. This Charlie, for making you spill your secrets. This one for making you laugh. This one can turn you on. This is the one who will convince you you’re capable of anything. Here is the Charlie who will pull you into his lap to form your human barricade at a hospital. And the one with the power to take you apart brick by brick.

I’m an old man, now. I’ve been alone since my 17th birthday. I’d wanted to marry, have a bunch of kids, and maybe be a grandpa. The big family around the Thanksgiving table, laughing and pouring wine and cracking jokes and harmlessly teasing the missus—I wanted that. I wanted to do something good with my life—something right. I didn’t want what happened to Danny, my best childhood friend, to be the only mark I’d ever make in this world. But I thought it best not to fancy such hopes and dreams: a family, love. I’d been cursed by my best friend, and I thought it right not to inflict that curse on anyone who’d be foolish enough to love me.

About Mozart's Requiem "It lulls you into thinking it's pleasant and harmless... and all at sudden, boom, there it is rising up menacing

I'm taking a revolver to Thrackley. You never know with blokes like Carson. A bit potty, but otherwise quite harmless. and I hate these harmless, potty people. They're always up to something.

Phil talked openly about his current life, but he closed up when I asked him about his early years. With some gentle probing, he told me that what he remembered most vividly about his childhood was his father’s constant teasing. The jokes were always at Phil’s expense and he often felt humiliated. When the rest of the family laughed, he felt all the more isolated. It was bad enough being teased, but sometimes he really scared me when he’d say things like: “This boy can’t be a son of ours, look at that face. I’ll bet they switched babies on us in the hospital. Why don’t we take him back and swap him for the right one.” I was only six, and I really thought I was going to get dropped off at the hospital. One day, I finally said to him, “Dad, why are you always picking on me?” He said, “I’m not picking on you. I’m just joking around. Can’t you see that?” Phil, like any young child, couldn’t distinguish the truth from a joke, a threat from a tease. Positive humor is one of our most valuable tools for strengthening family bonds. But humor that belittles can be extremely damaging within the family. Children take sarcasm and humorous exaggeration at face value. They are not worldly enough to understand that a parent is joking when he says something like, “We’re going to have to send you to preschool in China.” Instead, the child may have nightmares about being abandoned in some frightening, distant land. We have all been guilty of making jokes at someone else’s expense. Most of the time, such jokes can be relatively harmless. But, as in other forms of toxic parenting, it is the frequency, the cruelty, and the source of these jokes that make them abusive. Children believe and internalize what their parents say about them. It is sadistic and destructive for a parent to make repetitive jokes at the expense of a vulnerable child. Phil was constantly being humiliated and picked on. When he made an attempt to confront his father’s behavior, he was accused of being inadequate because he “couldn’t take a joke.” Phil had nowhere to go with all these feelings. As Phil described his feelings, I could see that he was still embarrassed—as if he believed that his complaints were silly.

I am still vaguely haunted by our hitchhiker’s remark about how he’d “never rode in a convertible before.” Here’s this poor geek living in a world of convertibles zipping past him on the highways all the time, and he’s never even ridden in one. It made me feel like King Farouk. I was tempted to have my attorney pull into the next airport and arrange some kind of simple, common-law contract whereby we could just give the car to this unfortunate bastard. Just say: “Here, sign this and the car’s yours.” Give him the keys and then use the credit card to zap off on a jet to some place like Miami and rent another huge fireapple-red convertible for a drug-addled, top-speed run across the water all the way out to the last stop in Key West … and then trade the car off for a boat. Keep moving. But this manic notion passed quickly. There was no point in getting this harmless kid locked up—and, besides, I had plans for this car. I was looking forward to flashing around Las Vegas in the bugger. Maybe do a bit of serious drag-racing on the Strip: Pull up to that big stoplight in front of the Flamingo and start screaming at the traffic: “Alright, you chickenshit wimps! You pansies! When this goddamn light flips green, I’m gonna stomp down on this thing and blow every one of you gutless punks off the road!” Right. Challenge the bastards on their own turf. Come screeching up to the crosswalk, bucking and skidding with a bottle of rum in one hand and jamming the horn to drown out the music … glazed eyes insanely dilated behind tiny black, gold-rimmed greaser shades, screaming gibberish … a genuinely dangerous drunk, reeking of ether and terminal psychosis. Revving the engine up to a terrible high-pitched chattering whine, waiting for the light to change … How often does a chance like that come around? To jangle the bastards right down to the core of their spleens. Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

You’re trying to appear as harmless as a lamb. But we both know you’re not.” “I have lamblike moments,” Tom said. At her dubious glance, he insisted, “I’m having one right now. I’m one hundred percent lamb.

Let me be clear and accomodative, more like water than ice; and raise my hands to show I mean no harm, and that I’m stupid, and malicious, and if I’m trying to be fearless I know it gives me no right to act like this.

Killian finally looked up from his paper. “Am I to assume there is some method behind my underlings sending you here?” I set the tray on his impersonally bare desk. “Not one I understand. They seemed to think you need to be entertained—though I’m not sure what they expect me to do.” Up went the edges of Killian’s lips in that mocking almost-a-smile. “Given your unique personality, to be amusing all I imagine you have to do is exist.” I pressed my lips together, making them thin. “It’s not like I go around doing stupid things.” “No,” he agreed. “It’s your propensity to hiss and puff up like a startled kitten when prodded.” “I still don’t understand why you insist on training me if you think I’m so harmless.” “Even when properly trained to the point of being deadly you will still resemble a troubled kitten or puppy,” Killian said. “It is due to your nature rather than your fighting abilities.

Ren followed along behind me somewhere quietly. I couldn’t hear him, but I knew he was there. I was acutely aware of his presence. I had an intangible connection with him, the man. It was almost as if he were walking next to me. Almost as if he were touching me. I must have started walking down the wrong path because he trotted ahead, pointedly moving in a different direction. I muttered, “Show-off. I’ll walk the wrong way if I want to.” But, I still followed after him. After a while, I made out the Jeep parked on the hill and saw Mr. Kadam waving at us. I walked up to his camp, and he grabbed me in a brief hug. “Miss Kelsey! You’re back. Tell me what happened.” I sighed, set down my backpack, and sat on the back bumper of the Keep. “Well, I have to tell you, these past few days have been some of the worst of my life. There were monkeys, and Kappa, and rotted kissing corpses, and snakebites, and trees covered with needles, and-“ He held up a hand. “What do you mean a few days? You just left last night.” Confused, I said, “No. We’ve been gone at least,” I counted on my fingers, “at least four or five days.” “I’m sorry, Miss Kelsey, but you and Ren left me last night. In fact, I was going to say you should get some rest and then try again tomorrow night. You were really gone almost a week?” “Well, I was asleep for two of the days. At least that’s what tiger boy over there told me.” I glared at Ren who stared back at me with an innocuous tiger expression while listening to our conversation. Ren appeared to be sweet and attentive, as harmless as a little kitten. He was about as harmless as a Kappa. I, on the other hand, was like a porcupine. I was bristling. All of my quills were standing on end so I could defend my soft belly from being devoured by the predator who had taken an interest. “Two days? My, my. Why don’t we return to the hotel and rest? We can try to get the fruit again tomorrow night.” “But, Mr. Kadam,” I said an unzipped the backpack, “we don’t have to come back. We got Durga’s first gift, the Golden Fruit.” I pulled out my quilt and unfolded it, revealing the Golden Fruit nestled within. He gently picked it up out of its cocoon. “Amazing!” he exclaimed. “It’s a mango.” With a smirk, I added, “It only makes sense. After all, mangoes are very important to Indian culture and trade.” Ren huffed at me and rolled onto his side in the grass.

Ford and Arthur talking: "This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It's been bought out." Arthur leapt up. "Oh, very serious," he shouted. "Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can't tell you how much it's been on my mind of late!" "You don't understand! There's a whole new Guide!" "Oh!" shouted Arthur again. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I've never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that's got it right this very instant?" Ford narrowed his eyes. "This is what you call sarcasm, isn't it?" "Do you know," bellowed Arthur, "I think it is? I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?" ... "Temporal reverse engineering." Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side. "Is there any humane way," he moaned, "in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?" ... "I leaped out of a high-rise office window." This cheered Arthur up. "Oh!" he said. "Why don't you do it again?" "I did." "Hmmm," said Arthur, disappointed. "Obviously no good came of it." ... "What was the self-sacrifice?" "I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." "Why was that self-sacrifice?" "Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. "I think we have different value systems." "Well, mine's better.

Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?” Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. “What?” “Just for chumminess’ sake,” the little thing said, yawning wide and blinking. “I’m not being rude; it’s a good bonding procedure.” Sma was aware of Skaffen-Amtiskaw glowing red just behind her. She brought the yellow and brown device closer to her face. “Listen, Xenophobe—” “Xeny.” “Xeny. You are a million-ton starship. A Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even—” “But I’m demilitarized!” “Even without your principle armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to—” “Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!” “So what’s all this shit for?” She shook the furry little remote drone, quite hard. Its teeth chattered. “It’s for a laugh!” it cried. “Sma, don’t you appreciate a joke?” “I don’t know. Do you appreciate being drop-kicked back to the accommodation area?” “Ooh! What’s your problem, lady? Have you got something against small furry animals, or what?” Look Ms. Sma, I know very well I’m a ship, and I do everything I’m asked to do—including taking you to this frankly rather fuzzily specified destination—and do it very efficiently, too. If there was the slightest sniff of any real action, and I had to start acting like a warship, this construct in your hands would go lifeless and limp immediately, and I’d battle as ferociously and decisively as I’ve been trained to. Meanwhile, like my human colleagues, I amuse myself harmlessly. If you really hate my current appearance, all right; I’ll change it; I’ll be an ordinary drone, or just a disembodied voice, or talk to you through Skaffen-Amtiskaw here, or through your personal terminal. The last thing I want is to offend a guest.” Sma pursed her lips. She patted the thing on its head and sighed. “Fair enough.” “I can keep this shape?” “By all means.” “Oh goody!” It squirmed with pleasure, then opened its big eyes wide and looked hopefully at her. “Cuddle?” “Cuddle.” Sma cuddled it, patted its back. She turned to see Skaffen-Amtiskaw lying dramatically on its back in midair, its aura field flashing the lurid orange that was used to signal Sick Drone in Extreme Distress.

...By the way, here at Dupont we don't use 'Professor' or 'Doctor.' Everybody is 'Mister' or 'Miz.' Unless you're referring to a medical doctor. I'm sorry...Mr. Lewin...I didn't know that. Oh, it's just a harmless bit of reverse snobbery, actually. The idea is, if you're teaching at Dupont, of course you have a doctorate.

Who doesn’t like hedgehogs?” she asks, as though I’ve commented on the fact that she likes air and breathing. “Harmless, adorable little things. Show me a person who doesn’t like hedgehogs, and I will show you a psychopath. Lock them all up, I would.” I’m not convinced this is the universal test for assessing psychopaths,

On the TV screen in Harry's is The Patty Winters Show, which is now on in the afternoon and is up against Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Today's topic is Does Economic Success Equal Happiness? The answer, in Harry's this afternoon, is a roar of resounding "Definitely," followed by much hooting, the guys all cheering together in a friendly way. On the screen now are scenes from President Bush's inauguration early this year, then a speech from former President Reagan, while Patty delivers a hard-to-hear commentary. Soon a tiresome debate forms over whether he's lying or not, even though we don't, can't, hear the words. The first and really only one to complain is Price, who, though I think he's bothered by something else, uses this opportunity to vent his frustration, looks inappropriately stunned, asks, "How can he lie like that? How can he pull that shit?" "Oh Christ," I moan. "What shit? Now where do we have reservations at? I mean I'm not really hungry but I would like to have reservations somewhere. How about 220?" An afterthought: "McDermott, how did that rate in the new Zagat's?" "No way," Farrell complains before Craig can answer. "The coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I actually had to take a shit in M.K." "Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die." "Low point of the night," Farrell mutters. "Weren't you with Kyria the last time you were there?" Goodrich asks. "Wasn't that the low point?" "She caught me on call waiting. What could I do?" Farrell shrugs. "I apologize." "Caught him on call waiting." McDermott nudges me, dubious. "Shut up, McDermott," Farrell says, snapping Craig's suspenders. "Date a beggar." "You forgot something, Farrell," Preston mentions. "McDermott is a beggar." "How's Courtney?" Farrell asks Craig, leering. "Just say no." Someone laughs. Price looks away from the television screen, then at Craig, and he tries to hide his displeasure by asking me, waving at the TV, "I don't believe it. He looks so... normal. He seems so... out of it. So... un dangerous." "Bimbo, bimbo," someone says. "Bypass, bypass." "He is totally harmless, you geek. Was totally harmless. Just like you are totally harmless. But he did do all that shit and you have failed to get us into 150, so, you know, what can I say?" McDermott shrugs. "I just don't get how someone, anyone, can appear that way yet be involved in such total shit," Price says, ignoring Craig, averting his eyes from Farrell. He takes out a cigar and studies it sadly. To me it still looks like there's a smudge on Price's forehead. "Because Nancy was right behind him?" Farrell guesses, looking up from the Quotrek. "Because Nancy did it?" "How can you be so fucking, I don't know, cool about it?" Price, to whom something really eerie has obviously happened, sounds genuinely perplexed. Rumor has it that he was in rehab.

Come here. Then we'll talk." That sounds like a bad idea to her. "I can hear you fine right here." "Is it the arrows?" He kicks bow and quiver into the stream and grins a grin that puts the devil to shame. "There. Now I'm harmless." "No?" He tilts his head, shifting to his side so he can lean his stubbled chin on his hand. "Well, harmless enough. Don't you think?" "No.

... Obviously you're all quite used to the faces. But I'm beginning to wish I were back among my poor old harmless lunatics. Are you all blind, then? So easily fooled? Don't you see they'd kill you all for less than a gesture, for less than a sandwich? You needn't even be dark-haired or blond anymore, or show your grandmother's birth certificate. They'd kill you if they just didn't like your faces. Didn't you see the posters on the wall? Are you blind? You just don't know anymore where you are ... Respectable, respectable. I'm scared, old man-- I've never felt such a stranger among people, not even in 1935 and not in 1942. Maybe I do need time, but even centuries wouldn't be enough to get me used to their faces. Respectable, respectable, without a trace of grief. What's a human being without grief?

William looked at the mushrooms warily. “You know your way around these things, do you?” “I do. An archer knows all the poisons in the woods. They’re useful for tipping arrows. These are perfectly harmless.” He popped one in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “If I’m not dead by the time the bird is cooked, you will know I speak true. Now for dessert….” He took another cloth from inside his shirt and opened it. “Blackberries.” They

It all suddenly made me nervous, and a little, tiny, baby bit worried. Pulling one of the stools at the island back, I plopped into it and simply stared at that discolored, harsh face in unease. “I just want to know whether I need to steal a bat or make a phone call.” His mouth had been open and poised to argue with me… until he heard the last thing I said. “What?” “I need to know—” “What do you need to steal a bat for?” “Well, no one I know owns one, and I can’t go buy one at the store and have it caught on videotape.” “Videotape?” Did he know nothing? “Aiden, come on, if you beat the shit out of someone with a bat, they’re going to look for suspects. Once they have suspects, they’ll look through their things or their purchases. They’ll see I bought one recently and know it was premeditated. Why are you looking at me like that?” His mauve-colored eyelids went heavy over the bright whites of his eyes, and the expression on his face was filled such a vast range of emotions, one after another after another, that I wasn’t sure which one I was supposed to hold on to. He switched the icepack to the other side of his bruised jaw and shook his head. “The amount you know about committing crimes is terrifying, Van.” His mouth twitched under the rainbow of whatever he was thinking. “It scares the hell out of me, and I don’t get scared easily.” I snorted, pretty pleased with myself. “Calm down. I went through this phase when I was into watching a lot of crime TV shows. I’ve never even stolen a pen in my life.” Aiden’s careful expression didn’t go anywhere. “I’m not trying to kill anyone… unless we had to,” I joked weakly. His nostrils flared so slightly I almost missed it. But what I didn’t miss was the way the corners of his mouth tipped up into a tiny smile. I smiled at him as innocently as possible. “So do you want to tell me who’s going to get the fists of fury?” I hoped I sounded as harmless as I intended, even though I felt the exact opposite as every second passed. “Fists of fury?” “Yep.” I held up my hands just a little so he could see them. He had no idea the number of fights I’d gotten into with my sisters over the years. I didn’t always win—I rarely won if I was going to be honest—but I never gave up. The sigh that came out of him was so long and drawn out, I kind of prepped myself for the half-assed answer that was going to come out of his mouth. “It’s nothing.” There it was

I don’t have custody. Wayne is just—We’re on good terms about our son. It’s not an issue.” “Got a number where we can reach him?” “Yes, but he’s on a plane right now. He visited for the Fourth. He’s headed back this evening.” “You sure about that? How do you know he boarded the plane?” “I’m sure he had nothing to do with this, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re not fighting over our son. My ex is the most harmless and easygoing man you’ve ever met.” “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve met some pretty easygoing fellas. I know a guy up in Maine who leads a Buddhist-themed therapy group, teaches people about managing their temper and addictions through Transcendental Meditation. The only time this guy ever lost his composure was the day his wife served him with a restraining order. First he lost his Zen, then he lost two bullets in the back of her head. But that Buddhist-themed therapy group he runs sure is popular on his cell block in Shawshank. Lotta guys with anger-management issues in there.

Another example of their hatefulness while my dander’s up: in order to get themselves off the hook of sometimes liking uncool things, they refer to them as ‘guilty pleasures’, which is a ridiculous expression. What? So you like Abba, or Roger Moore as James Bond, but have been led to believe that this taste is somehow infra dig, so you style it a ‘guilty pleasure’, thus demonstrating you’re sufficiently relaxed and self-deprecating to own up to it – when in fact the way you have chosen to express it lays bare your bland and inane obsession with the worthless trappings of the zeitgeist. ‘Guilty pleasures’? It’s prudish and judgemental and yet it’s referring to harmless things people do in their spare time. I mean, I’ve watched and enjoyed The X Factor and I know that it’s not exactly the Proms or The Wire or whatever worthy thing I’m supposed to be watching, but why should I feel the least bit guilty about having taken pleasure from it? Or, for that matter, from eating a Findus crispy pancake, watching a Brittas Empire DVD or reading Country Life in the bath?

I went upstairs. Took me a while to find my bag, and then there was someone else in the bathroom. Came down and he was gone.” Tricia paused. “And …?” said Gail. “The garden door was open. I went outside. There were lights. Some kind of gleaming thing. I was just in time to see it rise up into the sky, shoot silently up through the clouds and disappear. That was it. End of story. End of one life, beginning of another. But hardly a moment of this life goes by that I don’t wonder about some other me. A me that didn’t go back for her bag. I feel like she’s out there somewhere and I’m walking in her shadow.

There is nothing very new about all that; I have never rejected these harmless emotions; far from it. In order to feel them, it is sufficent to be a little isolated, just enough to get rid plausability at the right moment. But I remained close to people, on the surface of solitude, quite determined, in case of emergency, to take refuge in their midst: so far I am an amateur at heart. Now, there are objects everywhere like this glass of beer, here on the table. When I see it, I feel like saying:"pax, I'm not playing any more". I realize perfectly well that I have gone too far. I don't suppose you can 'make allowances' for solitude. That doesn't mean I dont look under my bed before going to sleep or that I'm afraid of seeing the door of my room open suddenly in the middle of the night. All the same I am ill at ease. For half an hour I have been avoiding looking at this glass of beer. And I know very well that all the bachelors around me can'thelp me in any way : it is too late, and i can no longer take refuge among them...... ..... I know all that, but I know that there's something else. Almost nothing. But I can no longer explain what I see. To anybody. There it is: I am gently slipping into the water's depths, towards fear. I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices.

Matt’s housekeeper let him in with a grimace. “I’m harmless today,” Tate assured the woman as she led the way to where Matt Holden was standing just outside the study door. “Right. You and two odd species of cobra,” Matt murmured sarcastically, glaring at his son from a tanned face. “What do you want, a bruise to match the other one?” Tate held up both hands. “Don’t start,” he said. Matt moved out of the way with reluctance and closed the study door behind them. “Your mother’s gone shopping,” he said. “Good. I don’t want to talk to her just yet.” Matt’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh?” Tate dropped into the wing chair across from the senator’s bulky armchair. “I need some advice.” Matt felt his forehead. “I didn’t think a single malt whiskey was enough to make me hallucinate,” he said to himself. Tate glowered at him. “You’re not one of my favorite people, but you know Cecily a little better than I seem to lately.” “Cecily loves you,” Matt said shortly, dropping into his chair. “That’s not the problem,” Tate said. He leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his splayed knees. “Although I seem to have done everything in my power to make her stop.” The older man didn’t speak for a minute or two. “Love doesn’t die that easily,” he said. “Your mother and I are a case in point. We hadn’t seen each other for thirty-six years, but the instant we met again, the years fell away. We were young again, in love again.” “I can’t wait thirty-six years,” Tate stated. He stared at his hands, then he drew in a long breath. “Cecily’s pregnant.” The other man was quiet for so long that Tate lifted his eyes, only to be met with barely contained rage in the older man’s face. “Is it yours?” Matt asked curtly. Tate glowered at him. “What kind of woman do you think Cecily is? Of course it’s mine!” Matt chuckled. He leaned back in the easy chair and indulged the need to look at his son, to find all the differences and all the similarities in that younger version of his face. It pleased him to find so many familiar things. “We look alike,” Tate said, reading the intent scrutiny he was getting. “Funny that I never noticed that before.” Matt smiled. “We didn’t get along very well.” “Both too stubborn and inflexible,” Tate pointed out. “And arrogant.” Tate chuckled dryly. “Maybe.

MANO: There's no question in my mind that we've always felt, in the heart of our Western, Christian culture, that Jesus was very much female. That is why the representations of Jesus with long hair have always been predominant in art. The Virgin Mary was later presented as a harmless sort of woman to whom we can address our need for a maternal outlet in prayer, as a safer way of dealing with the fact that Jesus was as much a woman as a man, particularly when he died. DOOR: You said that if men don't overcome their wanting of women, society will crack. MANO: We are coming to a point where the genders are clumsily engaging in civil war with each other. There's a lot of unpleasantness in the land. Men feel terribly threatened. Women have been crucified for many years, so they understand it and have their axes to grind as well. The truth of the matter is, Jesus on the cross is the female being exploited in every which way. I mentioned intercourse being, at its best, an act of penetration, but there are many other ways in which women have been sacrificed, whether from childbirth or being sold as wives or whatever, through history. So when the male S&M devotee binds a woman to a cross, he has to realize, if he's a Christian-- DOOR: Uh, just how many Christian S&M devotees are there? MANO: Even if he's not a Christian, he ought to realize that he is essentially binding Jesus again, because Jesus contains in him the female--very, very strongly--but almost mystically hidden, I think, because the truth is too painful to deal with. I don't know. I've never heard anyone else say what I'm saying now.

Have a seat,” I say inside the Roosevelt Room. Ordinarily we’d do this in the Oval Office. But I’m not having this conversation in the Oval Office. He unbuttons his suit jacket and takes a seat. I sit at the head of the table. “Needless to say, Mr. President, we were elated with the results from yesterday. And we were grateful that we could be a small part of your success.” “Yes, Mr. Ambassador.” “Andrei, please.” Andrei Ivanenko looks like he could play someone’s grandfather in a cereal commercial—the crown of his head bald and spotted, wispy white hair along the sides, an overall frumpy appearance. The look works well for him. Because beneath that harmless-seeming exterior is a career spy, a product of Russia’s charm school and one of the elites in the former KGB, shipped off later in life to the diplomatic arena and sent here as ambassador to the United States.

Me?' he said, smiling, fixing her with icy blue eyes. 'Oh, I certainly didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm harmless, Mrs. Devon. Really, I am. All I want is a drink of water. You didn't think I wanted anything else-did you?' He was so damned bold. She couldn't believe how bold he was, how smart-mouthed and cool and aggressive. She wanted to slap his face, but she was afraid of what would happen after that. Slapping him-in any way acknowledging his in sulting doul entendres or other offenses-seemed sure to encourage rather than deter him. He stared at her with unsettling intensity, voraciously. His smile was that of a predator. She sensed the best way to handle Streck was to pretend innocence and monumental thickheadedness, to ignore his nasty sexual innuendos as if she had not understood them. She must, in short, deal with him as a mouse might deal with any threat from which it was unable to flee. Pretend you do not see the cat, pretend that it is not there, and perhaps the cat will be confused and disappointed by the lack of reaction and will seek more responsive prey elsewhere.

This is my fault. I know it's my fault. I should never have let you get so comfortable. You started thinking of me as harmless. I'm safe. I'm the monster at the end of the book, the one that you run to when the bigger monsters start threatening to eat you, but that's not right, Toby, that's not right, you forget yourself. You forget me. I am the scariest thing that has ever gone bump in the night. I am what you knew, at the bottom of your un-formed child's heart, was lurking in the back of your closet. And what I'm telling you, right here and right now, is that you need to leave, because I'm afraid of what will happen if you don't." I stared at her, fighting the urge to take a step backwards. Something told me that retreating would mean showing weakness, and showing weakness would be a mistake. "I'm not scared of you. If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it a long time ago, and it wouldn't have been over a yes or no question." "Toby." She said my name gently, and with a deep centuries-long sorrow. "Who the fuck said I needed you to be afraid of me?" She took another step forward dropping her voice to a whisper: "Run.

A sob pops in my throat. I choke it, and look around for a harmless visual distraction, but all I see is a stocky young woman with a baby, a few seats up. The baby is pulling the woman's hair, and she is faking this look of terror. 'Oh no', she says, 'How can you do that to mommy?' She pretends to bawl, but the baby laughs and gurgles like a psycho, and pulls even harder. I'm witnessing a fresh knife being laid into a brand-new soul. A training dagger. A maternity blade. Here's his mom quietly opening up the control incision, completely innocent in her dumbness to the world. 'Oh no, you've killed Mommy, Mommy's gone!' She plays dead. The little guy giggles for a minute, but only that long. Then he senses something's wrong. She ain't waking up. He killed her, she abandoned him, just like that, over a pull of hair. He pokes her with his finger, he gets ready to bawl. And there you have it: he takes the handle into his own tiny hands and pulls in his first blade, right up to the hilt. Just to bring her back. And sure enough, with the splash of his first tear, she wakes right up. 'Ha, ha, I'm still here! Ha, ha it's Mommy!' Ha, ha, that's the Scheme of Things.

Parents need to awaken to the fact that some of today’s trendy tunes on the pop charts include lyrics that glamourize illicit drug usage, encourage demoralizing sexual activity, and blaspheme God. It was difficult enough for me to read the lyrics to some of these songs in my research for this book, much less think about what they represent and how they mock godly principles. “Just harmless music,” you say; “another form of artful expression.” After all, “no one bothers listening to the words anyway; they’re just interested in the beat . . . right?” Think on this disturbing story: A twenty-nine-year-old man confessed to police that he sang songs while fatally stabbing his wife and daughter. His four-year-old son survived the attack despite being stabbed eleven times. According to police, the husband and father said he was possessed and believed that his wife was a demon. (Note: It is not possible for a human being to become a demon, but one can be controlled by demonic forces.) The man reportedly told the police that just before stabbing his wife, he started screaming lyrics from a popular rap song, saying, “Here comes Satan. I’m the anti-Christ; I’m going to kill you.” Police said this father admitted that when the kids awoke to their mother’s screams, he stabbed them too. He said he stabbed his son the most because he loved him the most. Then he rolled a cigarette, said another prayer, and called 911.14

All I wanted to say,” bellowed the computer, “is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” He paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone’s attention, before continuing more quietly. “But the program will take me a little while to run.” Fook glanced impatiently at his watch. “How long?” he said. “Seven and a half million years,” said Deep Thought. Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other. “Seven and a half million years!” they cried in chorus. “Yes,” declaimed Deep Thought, “I said I’d have to think about it, didn’t I? And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole are of philosophy in general. Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually going to come up with, and who better, to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press, and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?” The two philosophers gaped at him. “Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?” “Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.” So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a life-style beyond their wildest dreams.

Dammit, Holly, I'd never have believed you'd do something so harebrained. Do you understand that the building could have collapsed around you and those henwits? I know what condition those places are in, and I wouldn't let a dog of mine venture past the threshold, much less my wife. And the men—good God, when I think of the low-living bastards who were in your vicinity, it makes my blood curdle! Sailors and drunkards on every corner—do you know what would happen if one of them took it into his head to snap up a little treat like you?” As the thought seemed to temporarily render him incapable of speech, Holly took the opportunity to defend herself. “I was with companions, and—” “Ladies,” he said savagely. “Armed with umbrellas, no doubt. Just what do you think they would have been able to do, had you met with bad company?” “The few men we encountered in the neighborhood were harmless,” Holly argued. “In fact, it was the very same place you lived in during your childhood, and those men were no different from you—” “In those days, I'd have played merry hell with you, if I'd managed to get my hands on you,” he said harshly. “Have no illusions, milady… you'd have ended face-to-the wall in Maidenhead Lane with your skirts around your waist. The only wonder is that you didn't meet that fate with some randy sailor yesterday.” “You're exaggerating,” Holly said defensively, but that only roused his temper to a higher pitch. He continued to blister her ears with a lecture that was furious and insulting by turns, naming the various diseases she could have contracted and the vermin she had likely encountered, until Holly couldn't bear another word. “I've heard enough,” she cried hotly. “It's clear to me that I'm not to make a single decision without asking your permission first—I'm to be treated as a child, and you will act as a dictator.” The accusation was unfair, and she knew it, but she was too incensed to care. Suddenly his fury seemed to evaporate, and he stared at her with an inscrutable gaze. A long moment passed before he spoke again. “You wouldn't have taken Rose to such a place, would you?” “Of course not! But she is a little girl, and I'm—” “My life,” he interrupted quietly. “You're my entire life. If anything ever happens to you, Holly, there is nothing left for me.

We were never introduced, ye know. I’m Mrs. Lord’s brother. You can call me Ruaidri.” “I’m not calling you anything, I’m leaving.” “And what is your name, Sunshine? Ye’re his sister, aren’t ye?” “Yes, I’m his sister, and there is no need for you to know my name, no need for you to be asking me all these questions and trying to detain me, no need for me to stay here when I must go.” He grinned, wickedly. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” “Tell what?” “Yer brother, if you let me steal a kiss.” She gasped, coloring hotly. “You—you are a rogue and a scoundrel to even suggest such a thing!” “I may indeed be a rogue and a scoundrel but if I am, it’s not for wantin’ a kiss from a pretty lass.” He straightened up from the window, his strong, perfect teeth very white in the glint of moonlight. “Oblige me?” “No!” “I’m bettin’ it’ll be far more explosive than what’s about to transpire down there in the garden. Come here, Sunshine. I’ve a mind to see if those lips of yers were made for kissin’.” Nerissa’s mouth fell open. Her face went white, then flooded with color, and she was so shocked she could not even take another step backward. Seeing it, the Irishman laughed and made a little dismissive gesture with his hand. “Ah, don’t mind me, lass. I’m just messin’ about with ye. I’d never hurt ye, not in a million years. I’m perfectly harmless.” “You—you don’t look harmless.” “No?” He arched a brow, his gaze dropping pointedly to her bosom, the nip of her waist and the flare of her hips with undisguised interest. “How do I look?” Dangerous. Virile. Predatory. Fascinating. “I can’t answer that.” “Not scared of me now, are ye?” “After what you just said to me? No, I am not scared. What I am, sir, is offended. Outraged.” “I paid ye a complement and ye’re offended? Outraged? Saint’s alive, what would your reaction be if I paid ye an insult?” “I can’t believe I’m standing here having this absurd conversation with you. You are rude and obnoxious and drunk, and I have already given you far more time and attention than you deserve. Good evening, sir.” He went back to looking down at the garden below, his gaze far more keen and watchful than his drunken state should allow. “’ Twould be a better one if ye came over here and let me give ye that kiss.” “Ohhh!” Incensed, she turned on her heel and hurried for the stairs, hearing his laughter ringing out behind her.

Why should he treat Elizabeth as if he harbored any feelings for her, including anger? Elizabeth sensed that he was wavering a little, and she pressed home her advantage, using calm reason: “Surely nothing that happened between us should make us behave badly to each other now. I mean, when you think on it, it was noting to us but a harmless weekend flirtation, wasn’t it?” “Obviously.” “Neither of us was hurt, were we?” “No.” “Well then, there’s no reason why we should not be cordial to each other now, is there?” she demanded with a bright, beguiling smile. “Good heavens, if every flirtation ended in enmity, no one in the ton would be speaking to anyone else!” She had neatly managed to put him in the position of either agreeing with her or else, by disagreeing, admitting that she had been something more to him than a flirtation, and Ian realized it. He’d guessed where her calm arguments were leading, but even so, he was reluctantly impressed with how skillfully she was maneuvering him into having to agree with her. “Flirtations,” he reminded her smoothly, “don’t normally end in duels.” “I know, and I am sorry my brother shot you.” Ian was simply not proof against the appeal in those huge green eyes of hers. “Forget it,” he said with an irritated sigh, capitulating to all she was asking. “Stay the seven days.” Suppressing the urge to twirl around with relief, she smiled into his eyes. “Then could we have a truce for the time I’m here?” “That depends.” “On what?” His brows lifted in mocking challenge. “On whether or not you can make a decent breakfast.” “Let’s go in the house and see what we have.” With Ian standing beside her Elizabeth surveyed the eggs and cheese and bread, and then the stove. “I shall fix something right up,” she promised with a smile that concealed her uncertainty. “Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?” Ian asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile was so disarming, that he almost believed she knew how to cook. “I shall prevail, you’ll see,” she told him brightly, reaching for a wide cloth and tying it around her narrow waist. Her glance was so jaunty that Ian turned around to keep himself from grinning at her. She was obviously determined to attack the project with vigor and determination, and he was equally determined not to discourage her efforts. “You do that,” he said, and he left her alone at the stove.

That was the whole trouble with police work. You come plunging in. a jagged Stone Age knife, to probe the delicate tissues of people's relationships, and of course you destroy far more than you discover. And even what you discover will never be the same as it was before you came; the nubbly scars of your passage will remain. At the very least. you have asked questions that expose to the destroying air fibers that can only exist and fulfill their function in coddling darkness. Cousin Amy, now, mousing about in back passages or trilling with feverish shyness at sherry parties—was she really made all the way through of dust and fluff and unused ends of cotton and rusty needles and unmatching buttons and all the detritus at the bottom of God's sewing basket? Or did He put a machine in there to tick away and keep her will stern and her back straight as she picks out of a vase of brown-at-the-edges dahlias the few blooms that have another day's life in them? Or another machine, one of His chemistry sets, that slowly mixes itself into an apparently uncaused explosion, poof!, and there the survivors are sitting covered with plaster dust among the rubble of their lives. It's always been the explosion by the time the police come stamping in with ignorant heels on the last unbroken bit of Bristol glass; with luck they can trace the explosion back to harmless little Amy, but as to what set her off—what were the ingredients of the chemistry set and what joggled them together—it was like trying to reconstruct a civilization from three broken pots and a seven-inch lump of baked clay which might, if you looked at its swellings and hollows the right way, have been the Great Earth Mother. What's more. people who've always lived together think that they are still the same—oh, older of course and a bit more snappish, but underneath still the same laughing lad of thirty years gone by. "My Jim couldn't have done that." they say. "I know him. Course he's been a bit depressed lately, funny like. but he sometimes goes that way for a bit and then it passes off. But setting fire to the lingerie department at the Army and Navy, Inspector—such a thought wouldn't enter into my Jim's head. I know him." Tears diminishing into hiccuping snivels as doubt spreads like a coffee stain across the threadbare warp of decades. A different Jim? Different as a Martian, growing inside the ever-shedding skin? A whole lot of different Jims. a new one every seven years? "Course not. I'm the same. aren't I, same as I always was—that holiday we took hiking in the Peak District in August thirty-eight—the same inside?" Pibble sighed and shook himself. You couldn't build a court case out of delicate tissues. Facts were the one foundation.

And what is the popular color for gowns this Season?” he asked with a smile when it became necessary to announce himself. She gave a little start, and when she raised her face to look up at him, her cheeks were pink, her eyes wide. She looked, for lack of a better comparison, like a child caught doing something she oughtn’t. “Oh! Hello, Grey.” She glanced away. “Um, blue seems to be very favorable this year.” Arching a brow, he nodded at the periodical in her hand. “Beg pardon. I thought you were reading a ladies’ magazine.” “I am,” she replied with a coy smile. “But fashion is not one of its main areas of interest.” With an expression like hers-very much like the Cheshire cat in that book by Lewis Carroll-he doubted it was an article on housekeeping that put such becoming color in her cheeks. “May I?” he asked, holding out his hand. Her grip on the magazine tightened, reluctant to give it up. “Only if you promise not to tell Mama you saw me reading it.” Oh, this was trouble. Still, it was none of his business what a grown woman of three and twenty read. He was curious, that was all. “I promise.” She hesitated, then put the pages into his hand. Placing his fingers between the thin sheaves to mark her spot, Grey flipped to the cover. Christ on a pony! The magazine looked fairly harmless-the sketch on the front showed a demure young lady in a stylish gown and hat, sitting on a park bench. Only upon closer inspection could one notice that the object of her attention-and rapturous smile-was the young man bathing in the lake just on the edge of the page. He was bare-chested-quite possibly bare everywhere, but that key part of anatomy was carefully hidden with a line of text that read, “Ten ways to keep a gentleman at home-and in bed.” He didn’t want to see what she was reading. He had heard of this magazine before. Voluptuous was a racy publication for women, filled with erotic stories, advice, and articles about sexual relationships, how to conduct oneself to avoid scandal, etc. He could take her to task for reading it, but what would be the point? No doubt the information in it would serve her wisely someday. He gave the magazine back to her. “I have to confess, I’m a little surprised to find you reading such…material.” She shrugged. “I was curious. My parents were so happy in their marriage, so very much the opposite of most of what I’ve heard. If I’m to make a match as good as theirs, I need to know as much as I can about how to have a satisfying marriage.” Grey almost groaned. The image of Rose “satisfying” herself filled his mind with such clarity it was difficult to remember he’d never actually seen such a delightful sight. His body stiffened at the delectable images his mind conjured, and he had to fold his hands in front of him to hide his growing arousal.

Every special human being strives instinctively for his own castle and secrecy, where he is saved from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he can forget the rule-bound "people," for he is an exception to them;—but for the single case where he is pushed by an even stronger instinct straight against these rules, as a person who seeks knowledge in a great and exceptional sense. Anyone who, in his intercourse with human beings, does not, at one time or another, shimmer with all the colours of distress—green and gray with disgust, surfeit, sympathy, gloom, and loneliness—is certainly not a man of higher taste. But provided he does not take all this weight and lack of enthusiasm freely upon himself, always keeps away from it, and stays, as mentioned, hidden, quiet, and proud in his castle, well, one thing is certain: he is not made for, not destined for, knowledge. For if he were, he would one day have to say to himself, "The devil take my good taste! The rule-bound man is more interesting than the exception—than I am, the exception!"— and he would make his way down , above all, "inside." The study of the average man—long, serious, and requiring much disguise, self-control, familiarity, bad company - (all company is bad company except with one’s peers):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life story of every philosopher, perhaps the most unpleasant, foul-smelling part, the richest in disappointments. But if he’s lucky, as is appropriate for a fortunate child of knowledge, he encounters real shortcuts and ways of making his task easier; I’m referring to the so-called cynics, those who, as cynics, simply recognize the animal, the meanness, the "rule-bound man" in themselves and, in the process, still possess that degree of intellectual quality and urge to have to talk about themselves and people like them before witnesses;—now and then they even wallow in books, as if in their very own dung. Cynicism is the single form in which common souls touch upon what honesty is, and the higher man should open his ears to every cruder and more refined cynicism and think himself lucky every time a shameless clown or a scientific satyr announces himself directly in front of him. There are even cases where enchantment gets mixed into the disgust—for example, in those places where, by some vagary of nature, genius is bound up with such an indiscreet billy-goat and ape; as in the Abbé Galiani, the most profound, sharp-sighted, and perhaps also the foulest man of his century—he was much deeper than Voltaire and consequently a good deal quieter. More frequently it happens that, as I’ve intimated, the scientific head is set on an ape’s body, a refined and exceptional understanding in a common soul; among doctors and moral physiologists, for example, that’s not an uncommon occurrence. And where anyone speaks without bitterness and quite harmlessly of men as a belly with two different needs and a head with one, everywhere someone constantly sees, looks for, and wants to see only hunger, sexual desires, and vanity, as if these were the real and only motivating forces in human actions, in short, wherever people speak "badly" of human beings—not even in a nasty way—there the lover of knowledge should pay fine and diligent attention; he should, in general, direct his ears to wherever people talk without indignation. For the indignant man and whoever is always using his own teeth to tear himself apart or lacerate himself (or, as a substitute for that, the world, or God, or society) may indeed, speaking morally, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, the more trivial, the more uninstructive case. And no one lies as much as the indignant man.

Asher,” she said, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back until he was lying on the bed and she was lying beside him. “Kiss me.” Thanking God for yet another reprieve, he rolled on top of her, bracing on his elbows as he palmed her cheek with fierce tenderness. “You terrify me.” She smiled, wiggling beneath him before pushing her pelvis up against his. “I’m harmless.” “You’re lethal.” “I’m waiting.” And then his mouth claimed hers, and she didn’t have to wait anymore.

It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; it does not shy away from the sword.” —Job 39:22 (NIV) Colby, my golden retriever, pounded through the woods, enjoying his first visit to Blue Ridge, Georgia. We turned down a gravel lane that looped by several houses perched high above the water when, suddenly, Colby froze. In front of my eyes, my sweet, loving golden tucked his tail and stood completely still; the high-pitched whine emanating from the back of his throat was his only giveaway. My eyes followed to where his gaze locked: our neighbor’s life-size, two-dimensional metal cutout of a bear. From where we stood, the bear looked to be crossing a stream a few yards away from us. Had Colby noticed the bear a few feet earlier or later, he would’ve seen what I knew to be true: This harmless, flat, rusted bear was only a lawn ornament. Instead, Colby cowered and whimpered until I carried him far enough along the path so that he could recognize the bear was only metal. I often wonder how many times God has had to pull me past certain trials that I don’t notice until I’m knee-deep in them and cowering. If I’d seen them coming or had the patience to wait until the fear subsided, I might’ve been better prepared to call out to God in prayer. Instead, I collapsed in a pile of woe and wailing, panicked at the situation I faced. Now, when I comfort Colby when he encounters something scary, I remember that God does the same with me. I may not be able to see the leash, but if I pay attention, I can feel the tug on my heart to follow Him. Lord, remind me that diving into my fear only allows it to bloom. Remind me to follow You out of the darkness and into the light. —Ashley Kappel Digging Deeper: Ps 23:4; Is 41:10; 1 Jn 4:18

To be sure, the Democrats don’t have a monopoly on creepy sexists. The difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, however, is that Republicans don’t defend their versions of Anthony Weiner and Bob Filner. Republicans don’t excuse sexist behavior just because they like the creeps’ public policies. They don’t say that “nobody’s perfect” or that harassment is “harmless” or that “what goes on in San Diego is up to the people of San Diego; I’m not here to make any judgments.

You seem ill at ease, Miss Sullivan. I assure you I’m completely harmless,” he said.

I'm sorry," I told the woman, "my brother does this from time to time. Been meaning to shoot him someday, never got around to it. He's harmless, really.

Matthew’s smile vanished as his gaze slid over her and lingered on the torn seam at her shoulder. “What happened to your dress?” “It was nothing. I had a sort of… well, a scuffle, you might call it, with Lord Llandrindon.” It was the most innocent way Daisy could think of to describe the encounter, which of course had been harmless. She was certain no lurid connotations could be attached to “scuffle.” However, it appeared that Swift’s definition of the word was far more expansive than hers. Suddenly his expression turned dark and frightening, and his blue eyes blazed. “I’m going to kill him,” he said in a guttural voice. “He dared to— where is he?” “No, no,” Daisy said hastily, “you misunderstood— it wasn’t like that—” Dropping the sketchbook, she threw her arms around him, using all her weight to restrain him as he headed toward the garden. She might as well have tried to hold back a charging bull. With the first few steps she was carried bodily with him. “Wait! What gives you the right to do anything where I’m concerned?” Breathing heavily, Matthew stopped and glared down into her flushed face. “Did he touch you? Did he force you to—” “You’re nothing but a dog in the manger,” Daisy cried hotly. “You don’t want me— why should you care if someone else does? Leave me alone and go back to your plans for building your big sodding factory and making mountains of money! I hope you become the richest man in the world. I hope you get everything you want, and then someday you’ll look around and wonder why no one loves you and why you’re so unh—” Her words were crushed into silence as he kissed her, his mouth hard and punishing. A wild thrill shot through her, and she turned her face away with a gasp. “— happy,” she managed to finish, just before he clasped her head in his hands and kissed her again.

Fortunately for me, I came out of ray misadventures with drugs and alcohol with my life, health, and soul pretty much intact. I know many who didn't. It's not harmless. I've lost many friends to that way of life. Some have died. Some have simply fried their hard drives for the rest of time or live in a perpetual chemical fog. I'm betting not one of them would say, "It was worth it.

Because I see the way you look at me—like I’m some kind of harmless stray dog who only needs a little love.

Look, about Friday night,” he says with a laugh. It seems harmless, so I smile back. Maybe this is a joke we’re going to share for a long time. Maybe we can recover from Friday and be friends, or— “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone what happened,” he says, almost urgently. I feel nothing. Everything I thought I felt vanishes, and all my brain leaves me is a stupid look on my face. “What?” Adam runs a hand through his blond waves and grimaces. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just—you know, my parents—and I had too much to drink—” I interrupt him. “What do your parents have to do with anything?” His eyes flit across mine, begging me to let him off the hook. He doesn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re not the kind of girl I usually go out with.” “What does that mean?” I’m shaking. “I don’t usually date Asian girls, that’s all,” he says finally. I blink and my eyes go blurry. “I don’t have anything against girls like you,” he insists, “but my parents, they wouldn’t understand. This is kind of a small town, you know?” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “So you want me to lie about my first kiss because your parents are racist?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: “You were the one who kissed me.” My throat tightens. My face burns. It’s not that I wanted our kiss to mean anything—I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with it being erased. I’m not comfortable being erased.

Look, about Friday night,” he says with a laugh. It seems harmless, so I smile back. Maybe this is a joke we’re going to share for a long time. Maybe we can recover from Friday and be friends, or— “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone what happened,” he says, almost urgently. I feel nothing. Everything I thought I felt vanishes, and all my brain leaves me is a stupid look on my face. “What?” Adam runs a hand through his blond waves and grimaces. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just—you know, my parents—and I had too much to drink—” I interrupt him. “What do your parents have to do with anything?” His eyes flit across mine, begging me to let him off the hook. He doesn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re not the kind of girl I usually go out with.” “What does that mean?” I’m shaking. “I don’t usually date Asian girls, that’s all,” he says finally. I blink and my eyes go blurry. “I don’t have anything against girls like you,” he insists, “but my parents, they wouldn’t understand. This is kind of a small town, you know?” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “So you want me to lie about my first kiss because your parents are racist?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: “You were the one who kissed me.” My throat tightens. My face burns. It’s not that I wanted our kiss to mean anything—I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with it being erased. I’m not comfortable being erased.

You're cold." "Listen, Mister Damn-the-Torpedoes—" "No. It was a compliment. Cold, ethical people save more lives than hotheads." He forced himself to look halfway relaxed. It didn't really work. Like it or not, he had an edge showing; he didn't think of himself as harmless, not at the moment, and it was visible somehow. "It’s a trait I’ve tried to cultivate myself, especially," a split second of distress, not quite a wince, "in the last three years. Can’t say I’m all that good at it.

If I say the bad news, I can win applause over the planet: Man is the scourge of the planet, and he was born a scourge, just a few thousand years ago. But the news I am bringing is much different: Man was NOT born a few thousand years ago and he was NOT born a scourge. For this news I am condemned. Man was born MILLIONS of years ago, and he was not more a scourge than lions and hawks or squids. He lived AT PEACE with the world…for MILLIONS of years. That doesn’t mean he was a saint. That doesn’t mean he walked the earth like a buddha. It means he lived as harmlessly as a hyena or a shark or a rattlesnake. It is not MAN who is the scourge of the world. It’s a single culture. One culture out of hundreds of thousands of cultures. OUR culture. We don’t have to change HUMANKIND in order to survive. We only have to change a single culture. It is not an easy task, but it is not an impossible one. Here is my good news: WE ARE NOT HUMANITY. Can you feel the liberation in these words? I’m sure they seem bizarre, whisper them to yourself. I want you to understand what these four words are. They are a summary of all that was forgotten during the Great Forgetting. I mean that quite literally. At the end of the Great Forgetting, when the people of our culture began to build civilization in earnest, those four words were unthinkable. We forgot that we are a single culture and came to think of ourselves as humanity itself. All the intellectual and spiritual foundations of our culture were laid by people who believed absolutely that we are humanity itself. Socrates believed it. Plato believed it. Buddha believed it. Confucius believed it. Moses, Hesus, Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Hume, Marx, Kant, they all believed it. Why would it be such a bad thing if we were humanity? If we were humanity itself, then all the terrible things we say about humanity would be true- and that would be very bad news. If we were humanity itself, then all our destructiveness would belong not to one misguided culture but to humanity itself. But we are not humanity. We are just one culture, out of hundreds of thousand that lived their vision on this planet and had a song. It is not humanity that needs changing, it is just us.

I apologize for my wife. I'm afraid we're still trying to get her house-trained. The dog, on the other hand, is perfectly harmless.

lethal combination of alcohol and drugs. Immediately after I popped the amyl nitrate under his nose, he stiffened. “What is that you’re giving me?” he choked. “I’m just giving you a harmless popper,” I told him, “so don’t worry about it. Inhale, inhale.

Looking angry and alive, the attachment was red and distended, with a bulbous head and purple, ropy veins. It protruded from a nest of his dark hair, two sacs dangling beneath, and her visual assessment made it extend out toward her in entreaty. She hazarded a glance at him, and he lay silent and still, studying her with an impersonal, glacial intensity. Had he planned to shock her? To have her tearful and swooning? To send her stumbling from the room in offense and alarm? He was motivated by deep, unfathomable issues that she couldn't hope to understand. The chances were great that he'd merely instigated this as a bizarre diversion in order to gain a response from her, but if the man thought she was some prim, squeamish miss, he obviously didn't know her very well. She was fascinated, enthralled, and ardent to explore. "It's larger than I supposed." "I'm aroused." "It changes size?" Her eyes widened with astonishment, and he chuckled at her naïveté. "Usually, it's flaccid and harmless." Tensing his stomach muscles, the extraordinary appendage inflated even more. "But not when I'm here with you like this. I'm so hard for you. I ache with my desire." There was a husky tone in his voice, a desperation that plucked at her common sense, leaving her reckless and rash, and just then, she'd have performed any impulsive feat he requested.

A clocked minute of static—a long time to sit and watch nothing, I was all for fast-forwarding but Nakota glared me down—then a sip of absolute blackness, recorded blackness, rich and menacing as an X ray of a cancer. Nakota, lips parting to say something but the thought drowned in the flash of an image: something like bloody stalks, caressing the screen like hands behind the glass, so greedily intimate even Nakota gave a tiny backstepping whoop. Then as if a barrier shattered, ferocious fun, whatever provided the images warming to this game: a vast black grin like the Funhole itself become its namesake, black asshole-mouth studded with teeth or bones like broken glass and in that Pandora opening Nakota breathless and me with my mouth hanging wide open, village idiot at freak show, a vertiginous glide forward as upon the screen came things I didn’t want to know about, oh yes I’m quite sophisticated, quite the bent voyeur, I can laugh at stuff that would make you vomit but how would you like to see the ecstatic prance of self-evisceration, a figure carving itself, re-created in a harsh new form from what seemed to be its own hot guts, becoming no figure at all but the absence of one, a cookie-cutter shape and in but not contained by its outline a blackness, a vortex of nothing so final that beside it the Funhole was harmless, do you see what I’m saying, the Funhole was a goddamned carnival ride next to this nonfigure and all at once what I wanted least, least, far less than to be struck blind or any kind of petty death was to see the figure turn (as it did now) in slick almost pornographic slowness and show me, show me what there was to see

I’m a grown man who can handle anything slung my way, including a stupid harmless drawing.

You can trust me," Decker said, his voice having lowered. "I know how that sounded, but you have nothing to fear from me. To you, I'm harmless.

Chaps my ass that we have to take orders from that asshole,” Skylar muttered. “He’s not my goddamn boss.” Sam grinned beside Donovan. “I’m liking her a hell of a lot. I admit, I had doubts when I first hired her on, but I wanted to see what she was capable of. You have to admit, she’s perfect. She has the delicate, harmless cheerleader look about her, but she’d remove your balls without remorse and then shove them down your throat after she broke your kneecaps.” Joe snorted, having overheard Sam’s comment

Watch out!” Dave yelled. Spidroth and Jean-Cowphio turned their heads, looking up in horror as the jet of lava sped towards them… … but then something unexpected happened. One of Spidroth’s arms instantly transformed into a huge red shield, and the lava splattered harmlessly off of it. “Waa!” Spidroth yelled, looking at her gigantic shield arm. Wait, Dave realized. That’s not a shield… that’s a wing! Suddenly Spidroth’s body began twisting and contorting: red feathers the size of pigs bursting from her skin. “YAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!” she screamed, as her eyes glowed and her body crackled with red electricity. “W-what’s happening to her?” Jean-Cowphio asked, dragging Vioroth’s unconscious body over towards Dave. “I… I think she’s monstermaxing,” said Dave. “Wait,” said Carl, as he and Chief Udder ran over to join them, “I thought she lost those monster-whatever powers?” “I guess not,” said Dave. “But this monstermax form looks different. It looks almost like…” “Oh, no way,” grinned Carl, looking up as Spidroth finished transforming. “I’m going to make fun of her so much if we all get out of this alive.” Spidroth had finished transforming, but this time she wasn’t a giant ball of spider legs and red eyes: She was a gigantic red chicken. “BWAAAAARRRKKKK!!!!!!!” The chicken roared, and then it charged towards the creeper queen. CHAPTER NINE Mega Chicken, I Choose You!

I felt so powerful that I wanted to go to Costco and wheel out a freezer on a dolly while waving around an old Safeway receipt, just because I knew I could. It’s easy. I’m supposed to be so harmless and weak and afraid that no one pays attention. But those weeks of dye stripping and returning to my natural state created a phenomenon in which the world had literally become mine for the taking.

Shallow. Harmless. A little bit stupid. Crazy in love with you. Needs access to every part of the house. Let’s see . . . Who am I? Well, Roman’s trophy wife, of course. I am pretty, elegant, and extremely snobbish. I love wearing expensive clothes, just the best labels. I’m not really into dresses unless the occasion requires it. I much more prefer designer jeans, paired with silky blouses. The heels are a must.

I don’t have anything hardcore. I do have a joint or two, or five. It’s harmless I’m telling you. Like one-time bitch, I ate like three edibles I had in my purse that I forgot about for maybe three months. I don’t know why I ate them, but I did. I was so high I called my mom from a closet and told her the dark had abducted me. After her and my dad

I’ve always had to make myself submissive, subservient, twisted into a pleading, passive mop just to make everyone else feel safe and comfortable. My existence has become a fight to prove I’m harmless, that I’m not a threat, that I’m capable of living among other human beings without hurting them.