Jupiter Jones Quotes

To The Undertaker or Friends Who Open This Coffin: After laying back the lid of the coffin, remove entirely the pads from the sides of the face, as they are intended merely to steady the head in traveling. If there be any discharge of liquid from the eyes, nose, or mouth, which often occurs from the constant shaking of the cars, wipe it off gently with a soft piece of cotton cloth, slightly moistened. This body was received by us for embalmment in a ____________ condition and the natural condition is ____________ preserved. Embalming was/was not possible. After removing the coffin lid, leave it off for some time and let the body have the air. Dr. Jupiter Jones, Embalmer & Keeper of the Dead

He had to wait in the sitting room for forty-five minutes. The room smelled of disinfectant and potpourri—he had the outlandish sensation he was in a medicinal Indian restaurant. During this time, he sat back in the corner, poised on the edge of his seat. It made the waiting easier if he leaned forward on his elbows with his hands between his legs as his knees drummed up and down. The other patients spread out through the room, each maximizing the distance to another human.

It rained for four days and four nights, hard. Aniline wasn’t used to it. At first in the neighborhoods, ditches adjacent to the streets handled the flood. The water finished filling the ditches and hid the potholes in the roads. Rain then brimmed the streets over, making Aniline into Venice. It eventually spread out in the low spots in the driveways, invaded lawns, and crept up towards the house foundations. People wandered into the café with squelching boots and comments ranging from philosophical to querulous. Then the weather broke. They had two intensely hot days. Banks of mist rose off the saturated yards and fields. The roads drained, and a blanket of mud covered the pavements. As if all this wasn’t enough, a super-cell thunderstorm rolled towards them to give them another taste of violent Texas weather.

To what shall I compare my literary pursuits in India? Suppose Greek literature to be known in modern Greece only, and there to be in the hands of priests and philosophers; and suppose them to be still worshippers of Jupiter and Apollo; suppose Greece to have been conquered successively by Goths, Huns, Vandals, Tartars, and lastly by the English; then suppose a court of judicature to be established by the British parliament, at Athens, and an inquisitive Englishman to be one of the judges; suppose him to learn Greek there, which none of his countrymen knew, and to read Homer, Pindar, Plato, which no other Europeans had even heard of. Such am I in this country: substituting Sanscrit for Greek, the Brahmans, for the priests of Jupiter, and Vālmic, Vyāsa, Cālīdāsa, for Homer, Plato, Pindar. William Jones

He slid his hand into his vest pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He then opened it and held it before her. “I’ve been charged with capturing Velvet Grace.” The poster had haunted her every move in town, pasted on the wall at the bank, the post office, Jupiter’s, wherever she’d went. Her pulse kicked into a stampede seeing it in the new sheriff ’s hand. “W-what does this have to do with me?” He refolded the paper and returned it to his clothing. “I figured you might be able to give me a few possible names to begin with. It’s rather extraordinary, a woman who shot a sheriff and fired at the deputy? She wouldn’t be any regular homesteader’s wife, I imagine.” She played with a curl that had fallen to her shoulder and forced a laugh. “Do you think I know any women besides the ones who work for me? Really? You should ask me about the men of Fort McNamara, Sheriff. The only other females I see are the wives who come around here looking for their husbands.” He laughed. “I guess you’re right.” “You’re on your own. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.” She skirted around him, intending to open the door for him to leave, but he caught her elbow. “Cora—” His grip was loose, but he captivated her with the appeal in his gaze and the tender stroke of his thumb on her arm. “What?” She fell under the spell of his azure gaze as his touch sent a ripple of pleasure deep within her. “I really would like another night with you. One I can remember.

Women and men in scrubs swept into the room and checked the monitors and the bags. They strode out, nodded at the quartet slumped in chairs against the wall, and scuffed down the hall. Nurses changed shifts, moved the life of the place along while patients and visitors waited frozen, locked into little boxes of concern and fear. The strange hours of the pre-dawn arrived, when the hospital hushed even as the business of sickness and death ground on.

He took himself off to bed. He wasn’t going to sit there and wait for an answer like he had sent e-mail to God. God didn’t exist, but he prayed regardless that all this would be gone in the morning. This had to be a glitch in the computer or in his mind. Maybe he had experienced a small stroke. Or maybe he was drunk, on a single glass. He had made a mistake with the drink—with it in his blood, he couldn’t take the Prozac. That could be the best explanation…some cross between whiskey and yesterday’s Prozac. He lay in the dark, up in the rafters of the sky, waiting for sleep. Somewhere around four, he dropped off and dreamt of panicked birds flying up out of trees.

He pulled on a coat and walked down the flight of stairs from the head house into the distribution floor. Then he walked to the far end to the east. This was the top floor of the grain elevator. He passed eighteen of the great bins–six on one side and twelve on the other, closed up with their huge twenty-foot concrete covers. At the end of the building, the ninety-year-old windows faced the coming night. Out there in the gloaming he could see orange needles standing against the dark reflecting the sunset. These spires luminescing in last light were other grain elevators, dotted across Texas down the rail line–all except one. The exception was a cross shrouded in farmer tin. Its owners billed it as the biggest cross in the world, and it anchored a truck stop and religious bookstore to the Interstate Highway.