Marshmallow Quotes

I dreamed I was buying new shoes last night," said Ron. "What d'ya think that's gonna mean?" "Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something," said Harry.

What a marshmallow. You should hold out for someone with a stronger stomach. Someone who laughs at the gore that makes weaker men vomit.

Tantalus made a wild grab, but the marshmallow committed suicide, diving into the flames.

Looks like someone had a mood swing.” She rolls her eyes. “Like you don’t want to know what his fears are. He acts so tough that he’s probably afraid of marshmallows and really bright sunrises or something.

I guess love's kind of like a marshmallow in a microwave on high. After it explodes it's still a marshmallow. but, you know, now it's a complicated marshmallow.

Sarcastic people tend to be marshmallows underneath the armor

Yes. Smashing. You’ll be just like those four chaps in the movie. You know the one, with the oversized marshmallow.

“Marshmallow.”

Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something.

You're a marshmallow. Soft and sweet and when you get heated up you go all gooey and delicious."-

THE WOMAN WAS GOING TO KILL HIM, and not because she was stronger and more vicious than he was. Which, if he thought about it, she was. He’d never ripped a man’s throat out with his teeth, and he was damned impressed that Gwen had. She’d made the Lords of the Underworld look like marshmallows.

On our own, we are marshmallows and dried spaghetti, but together we can become something bigger.

Don't disrespect the sword marshmallow.

Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night,' said Ron, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. 'What d'you reckon that means?' 'Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something,' said Harry.

You don't have to shoot me," says the young lion. "I will be your rug and I will lie in front of your fireplace and I won't move a muscle and you can sit on me and toast all the marshmallows you want. I love marshmallows.

No marshmallows. "I don't believe this! I'm going to write the president of General Mills! Don't they have any quality control?" "I'm sure it's just a fluke" "Doesn't make any difference whether it's a fluke or not. It shouldn't have happened. When a person buys a box of lucky charms he's got expectations

During the fire: 'Some of the drunker ones don't move. Some of them laugh. One person says, "Where's the marshmallows?" Mark slaps him across the face. "GET OUT!" he screams.

How could I remain unyielding? His words penetrated the flimsy barriers I’d set up around my heart. I’d meant to set up a barbed wire fence, but the barbs ended up being covered with marshmallows. He slipped through my defenses easily. He touched his forehead to my hand, and my marshmallow heart melted.

It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

EATABLE MARSHMALLOW PILLOWS LICKABLE WALLPAPER FOR NURSERIES HOT ICE CREAMS FOR COLD DAYS COWS THAT GIVE CHOCOLATE MILK FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS SQUARE SWEETS THAT LOOK ROUND

I'm just warning you, I'm probably going to be a total hard-ass vamp." Mallory snorted and walked out of the kitchen, calling out, "Yeah, well, you've got a purple marshmallow on your chin, hard-ass vamp.

Too bad we don't have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire." Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio.

He got a tan over break. I used to tell him he was so pale he looked like a marshmallow. He hated that I compared him to food. I told him that's what he got for calling me caramel. It shut him up.

She felt dirty, ugly and tired. She felt like a marshmallow heading into a house fire armed with chocolate and graham crackers.

I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.

...wanting things for the wrong reasons can turn anyone's life into a marshmallow on a stick over a hot fire: impossibly messy and eventually consumed, one way or another.

Watch the sunrise at least once a year, put a lot of marshmallows in your hot chocolate, lie on your back and look at the stars, never buy a coffee table you can't put your feet on, never pass up a chance to jump on a trampoline, don't overlook life's small joys while searching for the big ones.

My love burns for you like I’m an arsonist and marshmallows-on-sticks salesman. $2.99 each, or 5 for $10.

I lean in this time, and she doesn't turn away. It's cold, and our lips are dry, noses a little wet, foreheads sweaty beneath wool hats. I can't touch her face, even though I want to, because I'm wearing gloves. But God, when her lips come apart, everything turns warm and her sugar sweet breath is in my mouth, and I probably taste like hot dogs but I don't care. She kisses like a sweet devouring, and I don't know where to touch her because I want all of her. I want to touch her knees and hips and her stomach and her back and her everything, but we're encased in all these clothes, so we're just two marshmallows bumping against each other, and she smiles at me while still kissing because she knows how ridiculous it is, too.

Okay, listen. From what Shade said, Roag got toasted like a burnt marshmallow. He would have been nearly destroyed, right down to his junk." Wraith grinned. “Which is really fucking funny.

Everything good in there, T? Niko quipped. You need backup or anything? Bag of marshmallows to roast over that little campfire you just started?

I rented Ghostbusters, my all-time favorite inspirational movie. I picked up some microwave, popcorn, a KitKat, a bag of bite-sized Reese's peanut butter cups, and a box of instant hot chocolate with marshmallows. Do I know how to have a good time, or what?

There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.

He was hard lines, chiseled flesh, bronzed skin. I was a marshmallow melting in a cup of cocoa.

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ...' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ...

Eliza got vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry. She asked me to get chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and marshmallows. This way, she explained, we could share without overlapping flavors. Except she was pretty goddamn stingy with hers. She only gave me one bite. Meanwhile I was supposed to let her eat half of mine.

I have a flamthrower. (Zarek) You have a what? (Astrid) It pays to be prepared. (Zarek) Well. Those are nice for toasting marshmallows, but they’ll only make Thanatos mad. Regular fire won’t hurt him. I have this really neat gelatinous goo that comes out with my fire and it squirts my victims so that it don’t come off. Wanna see it? (Simi) No! (Zarek/Astrid) No? I don’t like that word. (Simi) We love you, Simi. We’re just scared of your goo. (Astrid) Oh, that I understand. Okay, you can live. (Simi)

The best fathers have the softest, sweetest hearts. In other words, great dads are real marshmallows.

I could tell in his face that I could burn the house down, and he’d just get out marshmallows and thank me for the lovely flame. I’m not sure I could make a mistake big enough for him not to forgive.

The world won’t get more or less terrible if we’re indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate,’ Kim said. ‘Though it’s possible it will seem slightly less terrible if there are marshmallows in the hot chocolate.

trantulus casually roasted a marshmallow and reached out for it but the marshmallow commited sucide and dived into the flames.

I literally could not feel more cozy right now if I were actually inside a marshmallow

Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds' eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little DARKRED sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.

What if the house catches fire?” “Roast marshmallows. And if it floods, you’ll go down with the ship. If there’s a tornado, I’ll meet both you and this house in Oz, after my shift. Got it?

People always mean something. Sometimes what they mean is 'you can't be trusted to remember to be kind', and then I want to bury them up to their necks in marshmallow fluff, so they'll remember how I choose kindness every single day

He grins as he straightens and walks toward me, the grin that brings out the dimples and nearly takes my knees out. I'm such a marshmallow.

I'm surprised you're not freaking." "I don't freak'" he said bluntly. "You kinda did when I burst into flames earlier." "You caught me by surprise. Next time, I'll just whip out the marshmallows.

Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.

My own view of myself was that I was small and innocuous, a marshmallow compared to the others. I was a poor shot with a 22, for instance, and not very good with an ax. It took me a long time to figure out that the youngest in a family of dragons is still a dragon from the point of view of those who find dragons alarming.

I had a dream last night, I was eating a ten pound marshmallow. I woke up this morning and the pillow was gone.

I mostly eat peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter and banana, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and potato chips, peanut butter and olives, and peanut butter and marshmallow goo. So sue me, I like peanut butter.

... you just turned down the woman who put a marshmallow duck in your hot chocolate. I hope you feel like a real asshole now.

By the blasé flatness of Tegan’s expression as he approached, he might as well have just come back from taking a piss. “Everything good in there, T?” Niko quipped. “You need back up or anything? Bag of marshmallows to roast over that little campfire you just started?” “It’s handled.” “No shit

Sarcastic people tend to be marshmallows underneath the armor,

My late summer shorts caught fire, and that’s when all the red of autumn began. We fell in love while she roasted marshmallows over my toasty genitals.

Being in love is like being lit on fire and having your loved one morph into a marshmallow as she runs to embrace you. But not being in love feels so much worse, possibly like being a tax collector. Actually, nothing compares to the lowliness of a tax collector.


He just hijacks me. I love him. And I won't be able to give anyone a real chance until that's over.

Women eat ice-cream, men toast marshmallows.

People tried to force me to feel better. But the only things that worked were time and distraction. Distract yourself. Stay busy. Count marshmallows, study frogs, whatever it takes. Time heals all wounds. It just does.

Thus proving that dreams that come true are not always the right dreams. Does wearing a glass slipper lead to a comfortable life? If everything you touch turns into marshmallows, won’t that make things a bit . . . sticky?

When our fingers touch a crackle of electricity passes between us.

She didn’t know they made men like him anymore. Hard exterior and gooey marshmallow insides.

What would angel lips taste like? Sunshine? Marshmallows? Or something altogether different? Maybe buttered-popcorn jelly beans.

Somewhere in hell Satan has just pulled out a bag of marshmallows and is roasting them in my honor.

Nothing says “I’m sexy” like appearing as if you’ve just blown the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

You, sir," I said, "have all the dignity of a badger with the clap. Shark shit has more fiber than you. I'm going to tie your nuts-first to a monkey's cage and make a mix tape of the resulting noise. Then I'm going to take a bag of marshmallows and a pair of granny panties and-"... ... He didn't want to know what I was going to do with those granny panties. Surprisingly, Granuaile did. "Sensei, what were you going to do with those marshmallows and panties?" she whispered as we walked together. "I mean, I'm sure it had to be dire, but it just didn't sound as threatening as the potential havoc a monkey could wreak on his sack." "There was more to that recipe," I admitted. "He cut me off before I could get to the Icy Hot and the gopher snake.

How perfectly whimsical. I expect we’ll be roasting marshmallows over the fireplace and singing happy sing-alongs round about midnight, yes? Perhaps someone could point me in the direction of the dormitories.

Diaries were horribly organized and awfully prescriptive. They involved dates and plans and regular entries and the suffocating weight of commitment. Journals, on the other hand, were deliciously wild and lawless things. One could abandon a journal for weeks, then crack it open one Saturday evening under the influence of wine and marshmallows without an ounce of guilt.

...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.

...which, of course, is how I developed my love for both Kabuki theater and marshmallow Peeps.

What if you’re wrong? What if I screw up and the world burns?” Fadil shrugged. “Then I’ll buy marshmallows and we’ll watch it burn together.

Silas stared at the miniature marshmallows floating like hard pebbles on the surface of the hot chocolate, apparently undisturbed by the heat that was slowly softening them.

Her voice is so soft. If it were a food item, it’d be a marshmallow.

Just because you toast marshmallows with a kid on a camping trip doesn’t mean he’ll become a Boy Scout.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up, you'd better be running!

Be in the World, Not of the World—Kind of like Lucky Charms cereal: there are lots of pretty marshmallows in with the cereal, but they’re not the same. So live with the cereal, but remember: you’re a pretty marshmallow.

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemny thoughtful.

Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch! Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes. Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed. O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.

A moment later, Garrett Graham’s deep voice comes on the line. “Clean sheets are in the linen closet, and you might want to bring your own pillow. Wellsy thinks mine are too soft.” “They are too soft,” Hannah protests. “It’s like sleeping on a soggy marshmallow.” “It’s like sleeping on a fluffy cloud,” Garrett corrects. “Trust me, Allie, my pillows rock. But you should still bring your own, just in case.

Once he’d had happiness but for so brief a time; happiness was made of quicksilver, it ran out of your hand like quicksilver. There was the heat of tears suddenly in his eyes and he shook his head angrily. He would not think about it, he would never think of that again. It was long ago in an ancient past. To hell with happiness. More important was excitement and power and the hot stir of lust. Those made you forget. They made happiness a pink marshmallow.

After you die, you're going to hell for being a dishonest bastard, and you'll burn for eternity." The guy snatched his hand back. "I don't believe in Hell." "Most people don't until they get there." Mab smiled at him. "Of course, if you stop lying and cheating, you can probably redeem yourself. If not, have them put marshmallows in your coffin. There's a bight side to everything, I always say.

To know other people thought he'd made a mistake vindicated me. I wasn't a bad girlfriend, he was simply going through a period of temporary insanity and he'd come to his senses soon.

I’ll let that go,” Ro told him, “if you tell me what it was like in my father’s head.” Fitz let out a relieved breath. “Fluffy.” “Like sinking into a giant marshmallow covered in feathers,” Sophie agreed. Ro choked on her laugh. “Okay, I need to figure out how to blackmail him with that.

Ah." Ax nodded. "She does not understand how menacing we are." He tapped her on the shoulder. "You do not know me," he said, "but I am a juvenile delinquent. I do not trust authority figures, I probably will not graduate from high school, and statistics say my present rowdiness and vandalism will likely lead to more serious crimes. I am a dangerous fellow and I am causing mayhem in this store." He reached behind her and pulled three jars of baby food from the top shelf. Shoved them behind a box of macaroni. Shuffled the Chess Whizzed in front of the Marshmallow Fluff. Tossed a bag of lady's shavers onto a bag of hamburger buns. "There. I have now shamelessly destroyed the symmetry of this shelf, undoing hours of labor by underpaid store employees. If you could see me, you would be frightened." "If she could see you, she'd have you committed," Marco muttered.

She believed that owning a lots of things made you a better person. She didn't know - possibly didn't want to know - that happiness comes from the inside.

This is encouraging evidence of the power of the environment to influence characteristics like intelligence. Even if traits like intelligence have large genetic determinants, they are still substantially malleable.

Guess I can’t go back to working for Quetzalcoatl, eh?” “When this is over, Billy,” Black Hawk said. “I think maybe we should go and visit the feathered serpent. Hand in our resignations. I’ll bring a box of matches.” “You going to toast some marshmallows with him?” “I’ll toast something,” Black Hawk promised.

Well, I’m sorry you might possibly be out a bit of money, Jack,” Isabel said. “Jesus, Isabel,” Holloway said. He opened the door. “A bit of money? Try at least a couple billion credits. That’s billion, with a b. Saying that’s a bit of money is like saying a forest fire is a nice way to roast some marshmallows.

Alas. What have we done to our good, bawdy, Anglo-Saxon four-letter words? ...We have blunted them so with overuse that they no longer have any real meaning for us. ...When will we be able to redeem our shock words? They have been turned to marshmallows. ...We no longer have anything to cry in time of crisis. 'Help!' we bleat. And no one hears us. 'Help' is another of those four-letter words that don't mean anything any more.

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

No shortcuts,” “Work hard, be nice,” “Don’t eat the marshmallow,” “Team and family,” “If there’s a problem, we look for the solution,” “Read, baby, read,” “All of us will learn,” “KIPPsters do the right thing when no one is watching,” “Everything is earned,” “Be the constant, not the variable,” “If a teammate needs help, we give; if we need help, we ask,” “No robots,” and “Prove the doubters wrong.

Cupid, that chubby cherub love dispenser, is dead. But before he died, he appointed me his apprentice in love. I loved Cupid, and that was precisely why I killed him. I strangled him. Then I shot him 17 times with his heart-shaped arrows. Then I burned his body while I roasted and toasted marshmallows and toasted to the good times he brought to the world. Then I took his ashes and mixed them in cake batter and literally consumed him. Mark it down: I have officially taken over as the foremost authority on love. I can't fly around like he could, but I have other endearing qualities. I can’t think of any at the moment, but I must have some.

A heavyweight boxing champion who dodges all serious contenders to consistently fight marshmallows is derided and ridiculed—and rightly so. Christians who dodge all serious struggle and consciously seek to put themselves in whatever situations and relationships are easiest are doing the same thing—they are coasting, and eventually that coasting will define them and—even worse—shape them.

They were both lean and blond and weather-beaten, and one evening, as they were portaging gear from their respective Zodiacs, Libby unzipped her survival suit and tied the sleeves around her waist so she could move more freely. Nate said, "You look good in that." No one, absolutely no one, looks good in a survival suit (unless a Day-Glo orange marshmallow man is your idea of a hot date), but Libby didn't even make the effort to roll her eyes. "I have vodka and a shower in my cabin," she said. "I have a shower in my cabin, too," Nate said. Libby just shook her head and trudged up the path to the lodge. Over her shoulder she called, "In five minutes, there's going to be a naked woman in my shower. You got one of those?" "Oh," said Nate.

Just because we're friends, doesn't mean I shouldn't have to say sorry. You deserve that respect.

I wanted to absorb every moment of this night. I knew it was special. I wanted to keep it locked away inside me forever just the way it was. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I thought of how he'd glowed like a jewel in the light of the campfire. The way the flames carved him against the darkness. The very shape of his head. The smudges of chocolate and marshmallows on his fingers and lips. How the hair on his legs looked like filaments of gold. When I was certain my heart hat painted the canvas in my memory...I fell asleep.

If you have a monster inside of you, please teach it how to jump, and laugh, and fly and catch fish! Please teach it to climb mountains to watch sunsets and wade in ponds to feel moonlight. Please love your monster, tell it that it has a home, teach it that it has a place in this world, maybe it likes ice cream, maybe marshmallows make it smile, maybe it goes to beautiful places in its dreams at night. One day it will sit atop a clocktower and cast sunbeams onto everyone! Because it will learn that! Because angels are too busy to do that, but monsters are not. Monsters would love to catch sunbeams and eat sugar donuts. Teach your monsters, they will form moonbeams one day!

In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sport cars on their sixteenth birthdays, Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the pride of the school. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancun during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before the prom. But they are so cute. And they cheer on our boys, inciting them to violence and, we hope, victory. They’re are our role models- the Girls Who Have It All. I bet none of them ever stutter or screw up or feel like their brains are dissolving into marshmallow fluff.

Chris loved to look at every type of plant, animal, and bug he hadn’t seen before on the trail and point out those he did recognize. He enjoyed walking along small streams, listening to the water as it traveled, and searching for eddies where we could watch the minnows scurry amongst the rocks. On one Shenandoah trip, while we were resting at a waterfall, eating our chocolate-covered granola bars and watching the water pummel the rocks below, he said, “See, Carine ? That’s the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you”. Chris seemed to be most comfortable outdoors, and the farther away from the typical surroundings and pace of our everyday lives the better. While it was unusual for a solid week to pass without my parents having an argument that sent them into a negative tailspin of destruction and despair, they never got into a fight of any consequence when we were on an extended family hike or camping trip. It seemed like everything became centered and peaceful when there was no choice but to make nature the focus. Our parents’ attention went to watching for blaze marks on trees ; staying on the correct trail ; doling out bug spray, granola bars, sandwiches, and candy bars at proper intervals ; and finding the best place to pitch the tent before nightfall. They taught us how to properly lace up our hiking boots and wear the righ socks to keep our feet healthy and reliable. They showed us which leaves were safe to use as toilet paper and which would surely make us miserable downtrail. We learned how to purify water for our canteens if we hadn’t found a safe spring and to be smart about conserving what clean water we had left. At night we would collect rocks to make a fire ring, dry wood to burn, and long twigs for roasting marshmallows for the s’more fixings Mom always carried in her pack. Dad would sing silly, non-sensical songs that made us laugh and tell us about the stars.

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween. I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop. Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices. “Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.” “Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.” “I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.” He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases. “I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in... “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.” He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.