Mat Leave Quotes

I have not had one word from her Frankly I wish I were dead When she left, she wept a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly." I said, "Go, and be happy but remember (you know well) whom you leave shackled by love "If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared "all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck "myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them "while no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...

I waited for him to say something more, but he was quiet. "Was there something you wanted?" I asked. He didn't answer right away, but I could feel him struggling, so I waited. "If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?" It was my turn to hesitate. "I don't know everything," I hedged. "You would know this. When we were walking... me and Jeb... he was telling me some things. Things he thought, but I don't know if he's right." Melanie was suddenly very in my head. Jamie's whisper was hard to hear, quieter than my breathing. "Uncle Jeb thinks that Melanie might still be alive. Inside there with you, I mean." Melanie sighed. I said nothing to either of them. "I didn't know that could happen. Does that happen?" His voice broke and I could hear that he was fighting tears. He was not a boy to cry, and here I'd grieved him this deeply twice in one day. A pain pierced through the general region of my chest. "Does it, Wanda?" "Why won't you answer me?" Jamie was really crying now but trying to muffle the sound. I crawled off the bed, squeezing into the hard space between the mattress and the mat, and threw my arm over his shaking chest. I leaned my head against his hair and felt his tears, warm on my neck. "Is Melanie still alive, Wanda? Please?" He was probably a tool. The old man could have sent him just for this, Jeb was smart enough to see how easily Jamie broke through my defenses. Jamie's body shook beside me. Melanie cried. She battered ineffectually at my control. But I couldn't blame this on Melanie if it turned out to be a huge mistake. I knew who was speaking now. "She promised she would come back, didn't she?" I murmured. "Would Melanie break a promise to you?" Jamie slid his arms around my waist and clung to me for a long time. After a few minutes, he whispered. "Love you, Mel." "She loves you, too. She's so happy that you're here and safe." He was silent long enough for the tears on my skin to dry, leaving a fine, salty dust behind.

You a low down dog is what’s wrong. It’s time to leave you and enter into the creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.

You are the strongest person I’ve ever known, Castor Achilleos, and it wasn’t because of how fast you ran or how hard you hit. It was because even when you got knocked flat on your back, you fought your way back up. You have to do it again now. Whatever you’re feeling, you have to leave it on the mat and get back up.

The full moon, well risen in a cloudless eastern sky, covered the high solitude with its light. We are not conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, even when the sun is clear of clouds, seems to us simply the natural condition of the earth and air. When we think of the downs, we think of the downs in daylight, as with think of a rabbit with its fur on. Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton inside the horse, but most of us do not: and we do not usually envisage the downs without daylight, even though the light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it us utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that event the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity---so much lower than that of daylight---makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

Sorry about Bender," Lula said, letting the Trans Am idle at the curb. "Maybe we could tell Vinnie he died. We could say we were all set to bring Bender in, and he died. Bang. Dead as a doorknob." "Better yet, why don't we just go back and kill him," I said. I opened the door to leave, caught my toe in the floor mat, and fell out of the car, face first. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the stars. "I'm fine," I said to Lula. "Maybe I'll sleep here tonight.

One Kashmiri morning in the early spring of 1915, my grandfather Aadam Aziz hit his nose against a frost-hardened tussock of earth while attempting to pray. Three drops of blood plopped out of his left nostril, hardened instantly in the brittle air and lay before his eyes on the prayer-mat, transformed into rubies. Lurching back until he knelt with his head once more upright, he found that the tears which had sprung to his eyes had solidified, too; and at that moment, as he brushed diamonds contemptuously from his lashes, he resolved never again to kiss earth for any god or man. This decision, however, made a hole in him, a vacancy in a vital inner chamber, leaving him vulnerable to women and history. Unaware of this at first, despite his recently completed medical training, he stood up, rolled the prayer-mat into a thick cheroot, and holding it under his right arm surveyed the valley through clear, diamond-free eyes.

I stared at Greta’s back. At her matted hair, decorated with brown torn leaves and dirt. What was happening to my sister? What if I’d never come? How long would she have stayed hidden in those cool, damp leaves? How long before she woke up alone and scared, with nothing but the howling of wolves to keep her company?

Sometimes I felt the bloated Toad, hideous and pampered with the poisonous vapours of the dungeon, dragging his loathsome length along my bosom: Sometimes the quick cold Lizard rouzed me leaving his slimy track upon my face, and entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: Often have I at waking found my fingers ringed with the long worms which bred in the corrupted flesh of my Infant.

In the deserted forest, Firestar crouched beside Spottedleaf's trembling body. Blood welled at her neck, soaking Firestar's cheek as he pressed against her. "Spottedleaf! Please don't go". Dovewing heard a sob in his mew. "You promised you'd be there to welcome me". Spottedleaf gave a tiny shake of her head. "That was never going to happen my love. I cannot journey with you anymore. I'm so sorry". Firestar pawed at her. "No! I still need you!" "Let her go" A she-cat shimmered into view, her gray fur long and matted. "Yellowfang?" Firestar looked at her, his green eyes pleading. "Don't let her disappear. Please." "This was her destiny." Yellowfang touched her muzzle to Firestar's head. "Let her follow it." "But she said she'd wait for me in StarClan!" Firestar's mew caught in his throat. Spottedleaf looked up at him and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something. A small gasp escaped her; then she fell limp. Her fur started to blur, leaving a faint outline and then nothing but bloodstained grass. Firestar's head drooped.

How peaceful it was, with the light evening breeze stirring the small leaves of the grapevine that clustered around the electric bulb, making the shadows move and change on the yellow mat below. For a moment he pushed aside the thought of money. From time to time the dark water beside them rippled audibly, as if a tiny fish had come to the surface for an instant and then darted beneath. It was in peaceful moments such as this, his father had said, that men were given to know just a little of what paradise was like, so that they might yearn for it with all their soul,and strive during their time on earth to be worthy of going there.

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!     Blunt the knives and bend the forks! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates–     Smash the bottles and burn the corks! Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!     Pour the milk on the pantry floor! Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!     Splash the wine on every door! Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;     Pound them up with a thumping pole; And when you’ve finished, if any are whole,     Send them down the hall to roll! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates! So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

She slowed to pick her way through places where water was seeping up through the mats of dying grass. Rain tapping through the brilliant leaves the only sound. She stopped. The sense of something there, with her, all around her, swirling and seething with energy. How intimately the trees seized the earth. How exquisitely she was included. Patrice closed her eyes and felt a tug. Her spirit poured into the air like song.

I was sitting there, as I said, and had been for several watches, when I came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper in which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still wearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, when I began to understand their care.” His grip on my shoulder tightened. “We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with the thickest gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations—books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.” “We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too who leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here—though I can no longer tell you where—no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot might dangle it from one ear for an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other.

Because his [Damien Hirst] art is idea art - art drawn on the back of cigarette packets and beer mats, roughed out in airport departure lounges and the back of the taxis, usually delegated to and carried by others - this leaves Damien a lot of time for what might loosely be called socializing. Hanging around.

When Mats came in the evenings, they would drink tea in the kitchen while reading their books and talking about them. If Katri came in, they were quiet and waited for her to leave. The back door would close, and Katri would have gone. “Does your sister read our books?” Anna wanted to know. “No. She reads literature.

Avoiding puddles, stepping over mats of hyacinth leaves that remained in place. Breathing the dank air.

You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.

I have my welcome mat turned around backwards so when people leave they think they’re going to a better place.

You a lowdown dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body is just the welcome mat I need.

Yoga practice, both on and off the mat, opens up the heart by revealing our patterns of grasping and inflexibility. This practice leaves no stone unturned. Through a disciplined and appropriately designed yoga practice, we not only see clearly our conditioned ways of living but we learn how to let go of those patterns so that our questions radically outnumber our answers. When we are open, and our habitual psychological and physical ways of being are suspended, we arrive in the present moments of life free to respond with an open and creative heart.

Leave home. Fail marvelously, and succeed even better. Kick your feet up and wonder when you will be back. Stay out late. Make telephone calls from unfamiliar street corners. When your mother’s voice comes from far away and asks where you are, squint down the road and tell her you aren’t sure. Make uncertainty your home. Put the mat out for yourself. Look at your watch and think of how you’re almost home.

Before long, my mother's friend, who, at the last minute, decided to stay for dinner, was asked to sit where I'd sat at lunch. Oliver's place setting was instantly removed, The removal was performed summarily, without a hint of regret or compunction, the way you'd remove a bulb that was no longer working, or scrape out the entrails of a butchered sheep, or take off the sheets and blankets from a bed where someone had died. Here, take these, and remove them from sight. I watched his silverware, his place mat, his napkin, his entire being disappear. It presaged exactly what would happen less than a month from now.

Here. Right here, right now bring your mind to this place and time. Invite it, even if it resists, to sit and witness what it is to be alive. Let there be no ulterior motive in this moment but to be. Rest on the waves of breath and choose to experience all of it. Let thoughts float through and leave again, as the mind slowly settles like snow inside a shaken paperweight. This is all there is. Here. Right here and now.

Now see the nasturtiums. The leaves are like tiny green parasols blown inside-out and the flowers are terrifically garish. In every village we pass through, see how they are everywhere, how they fill every gap in every wall, every crack in every path. The nasturtiums have it figured out, how survival’s just a matter of filling in the gaps between sun up and sun down. Boiling kettles, peeling potatoes, laundering towels, buying milk, changing light-bulbs, rooting wet mats of pubic hair out of the shower’s plughole. This is the way people survive, by filling one hole at a time for the flightiest of temporary gratifications, over and over and over, until the season’s out and they die off anyway, wither back into the wall or path, into their dark crevasse. This is the way life’s eaten away, expended by the onerous effort of living itself.

Back in Brooklyn, the wind was sharp and the streets were slick and Kat just really wished her Uncle Eddie believed in leaving a key under the mat instead of maintaining his strict stance that anyone who could not break into his Brooklyn brownstone had absolutely no business staying there without him. “Is there a problem, Kitty Kat?” a voice said from over Kat’s shoulder. Kat’s fingers were frozen and her breath fogged, and she’d had a far too upbeat rendition of “White Christmas” stuck in her head on a perpetual loop for the past eight hours. So, yes, there was a problem. But Kat would never, ever admit it. “I’m fine, Gabrielle,” she told her cousin. “Really?” Gab asked. “Because if you can’t handle Uncle Eddie’s lock then someone is going to get a lump of coal in her stocking again this Christmas.” “It wasn’t coal,” Kat shot back. “It was a very rare mineral from a condemned mine in South Africa, and it was a very thoughtful gift.

He look over at me. I thought you was finally happy, he say. What wrong now? You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need. Say what? he ast. Shock.

I walked across the two feet of drive to the lawn and stepped slowly onto the grass. It wasn't a wild grass, of course, but it was happy grass. Some variety of centipede, the mat stretching across the open spaces, the leaves and roots and runners heavily steeped in time and good water and care and nitrates. It felt…satisfied, maybe, and very oddly, it also felt...snobbish, if grass can feel snobbish. My own mixed grasses at home felt useful, functional, and beneficial. "You are supposed to be eaten," I told the snobbish grass softly, "by sheep and cattle and goats and geese. You are foodstuff." "Nell?" Rick asked. "Nothing," I said, walking away, the grass tickling my arches and pressing up between my toes. "Just talking to the grass.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassina had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

I take the comb from a pocket of my new dress and then hesitate. If I begin to untangle my nimbus of snarls, he will see how badly my hair is matted and be reminded of where he found me. He stands. Good. He will leave, and then I will be able to wrangle my hair alone. But instead he steps behind me and takes the comb from my hands. 'Let me do that,' he says, taking strands of my hair in his fingers. 'It's the colour of primroses.' My shoulders tense. I am unused to people touching me. 'You don't need to-' I start. 'It's no trouble,' he says. 'I had three older sisters brushing and braiding mine, no matter how I howled. I had to learn to do theirs, in self-defence. And my mother...' His fingers are clever. He holds each lock at the base, slowly teasing out the knots at the very end and then working backward to the scalp. Under his hands, it becomes smooth ribbons. If I had done this, I would have yanked half of it out in frustration. 'Your mother...,' I echo, prompting him to continue in a voice that shakes only a little. He begins to braid, sweeping my hair up so that thick plaits become something like his circlet, wrapping around my head. 'When we were in the mortal world, away from her servants, she needed help arranging it.' His voice is soft. This, along with the slightly painful pull against my scalp, the brush of his fingertips against my neck as he separates a section, the slight frown of concentration on his face, is overwhelming. I am not accustomed to someone being this close. When I look up, his smile is all invitation. We are no longer children, playing games and hiding beneath his bed, but I feel as though this is a different kind of game, one where I do not understand the rules. With a shiver, I take up the mirror from the dresser. In this hair, and with this dress, I look pretty. The kind of pretty that allows monsters to deceive people into forests, into dances where they will find their doom.

Sant Mat (the path and teachings as taught and practiced by saints) delineates the path of union of soul with the Divine. The teachings of the saints explain the re-uniting as follows: The individual soul has descended from the higher worlds [the Realm of the Divine] to this city of illusion, bodily existence. It has descended from the Soundless state to the essence of Sound, from that Sound to Light, and finally from the realm of Light to the realm of Darkness. The qualities (dharmas, natural tendencies) of the sense organs draw us downward and away from our true nature. The nature of the soul (atman) draws us upwards and inwards and establishes us in our own true nature. Returning to our origins involves turning inward: withdrawal of consciousness from the senses and the sense objects in order to go upward from the darkness to the realms of Light and Sound. [We experience this phenomenon of withdrawal as we pass from waking consciousness to deep sleep.] Another way to express this is to go inward from the external sense organs to the depth of the inner self. (Both of these expressions are the metaphors that signify the same movement). The natural tendencies of the soul (atman) are to move from outward to inward. The current of consciousness which is dispersed in the nine gates of the body and the senses, must be collected at the tenth gate. The tenth gate is the gathering point of consciousness. Therein lies the path for our return. The tenth gate is also known as the sixth chakra, the third eye, bindu, the center located between the two eyebrows. This is the gateway through which we leave the gates of the sense organs and enter in the divine realms and finally become established in the soul. We travel back from the Realm of Darkness to the Realm of Light, from the Light to the Divine Sound, and from the Realm of Sound to the Soundless State. This is called turning back to the Source. This is what dharma or religion really intends to teach us. This is the essence of dharma.

You will leave your home: nothing will hold you. You will wear dresses of gold; skins of silver, copper and bronze. The sky above you will shift in meaning each time you think you understand. You will spend a lifetime chipping away layers of flesh. The shadow of your scales will always remain. You will be marked by sulphur and salt. You will bathe endlessly in clear streams and fail to rid yourself of that scent. Your feet will never be your own. Stone will be your path. Storms will follow in your wake, destroying all those who take you in. You will desert your children kill your lovers and devour their flesh. You will love no one but the wind and ache of your bones. Neither will love you in return. With age, your hair will grow matted and dull, your skin will gape and hang in long folds, your eyes will cease to shine. But nothing will be enough. The sea will never take you back.

We need daylight and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that even the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity--so much lower than that of daylight--makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

Mr. _____ start up from his seat, look at Shug, plop back down again. He look over at me. I thought you was finally happy, he say. What wrong now? You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need. Say what? he ast. Shock.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked around the empty lot. I wavered on getting out when a giant lightning bolt painted a jagged streak across the rainy lavender-gray sky. Minutes passed and still he didn’t come out of the Three Hundreds’ building. Damn it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped out of the car, cursing at myself for not carrying an umbrella for about the billionth time and for not having waterproof shoes, and ran through the parking lot, straight through the double doors. As I stomped my feet on the mat, I looked around the lobby for the big guy. A woman behind the front desk raised her eyebrows at me curiously. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. “Have you seen Aiden?” “Aiden?” Were there really that many Aidens? “Graves.” “Can I ask what you need him for?” I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled at the woman who didn’t know me and, therefore, didn’t have an idea that I knew Aiden. “I’m here to pick him up.” It was obvious she didn’t know what to make of me. I didn’t exactly look like pro-football player girlfriend material in that moment, much less anything else. I’d opted not to put on any makeup since I hadn’t planned on leaving the house. Or real pants. Or even a shirt with the sleeves intact. I had cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt with sleeves that I’d taken scissors to. Plus the rain outside hadn’t done my hair any justice. It looked like a cloud of teal. Then there was the whole we-don’t-look-anything-alike thing going on, so there was no way we could pass as siblings. Just as I opened my mouth, the doors that connected the front area with the rest of the training facility swung open. The man I was looking for came out with his bag over his shoulder, imposing, massive, and sweaty. Definitely surly too, which really only meant he looked the way he always did. I couldn’t help but crack a little smile at his grumpiness. “Ready?” He did his form of a nod, a tip of his chin. I could feel the receptionist’s eyes on us as he approached, but I was too busy taking in Grumpy Pants to bother looking at anyone else. Those brown eyes shifted to me for a second, and that time, I smirked uncontrollably. He glared down at me. “What are you smiling at?” I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, trying to give him an innocent look. “Oh, nothing, sunshine.” He mouthed ‘sunshine’ as his gaze strayed to the ceiling. We ran out of the building side by side toward my car. Throwing the doors open, I pretty much jumped inside and shivered, turning the car and the heater on. Aiden slid in a lot more gracefully than I had, wet but not nearly as soaked. He eyed me as he buckled in, and I slanted him a look. “What?” With a shake of his head, he unzipped his duffel, which was sitting on his lap, and pulled out that infamous off-black hoodie he always wore. Then he held it out. All I could do was stare at it for a second. His beloved, no-name brand, extra-extra-large hoodie. He was offering it to me. When I first started working for Aiden, I remembered him specifically giving me instructions on how he wanted it washed and dried. On gentle and hung to dry. He loved that thing. He could own a thousand just like it, but he didn’t. He had one black hoodie that he wore all the time and a blue one he occasionally donned. “For me?” I asked like an idiot. He shook it, rolling his eyes. “Yes for you. Put it on before you get sick. I would rather not have to take care of you if you get pneumonia.” Yeah, I was going to ignore his put-out tone and focus on the ‘rather not’ as I took it from him and slipped it on without another word. His hoodie was like holding a gold medal in my hands. Like being given something cherished, a family relic. Aiden’s precious.

Little one! Good one! Beloved! The sun is baking, the waves are rolling and I love you. Today Lasse and I went out and sailed in the snipe, enjoying ourselves on the most gor- geous beach, with comfortable mats and the Mediterranean foaming under the soles of my feet. There’s a great wind, and I love only, only you. I’ve never been more disappointed than I was in Miel when there was no letter from you. I just hope you haven’t changed your mind, that you’ve found your Superman that you’ve always been going around dreaming about. I want so much to be your Superman, to be your Mofschen, I want to hold you in my arms and kiss your eyes . . . You must always love me, Marianne, never leave me. Perhaps we are among the few who can really be good together. We’ve fought, been crazy with jealousy and devilry, and always found our way back to each other — and that’s where it’s wonderful to be . . . Darling, darling, Marianne. My yearning for you is indescribable. I often imagine that it’s the two of us who are here in the Mediterranean. But the time will come. The whole future lies before us.

Was he going to chain her again and leave? Sit at the table all night and watch her? She stared at him, waiting. He pointed at the bed. "Go on, get in." After a moment's hesitation, she did. She noticed absently that she'd been asleep long enough that her hair was now dry. It was still tangled and matted around her face, but it smelled fresh. Maybe it was because I was clean and warm and

The head rolls over on its face (the feathers in its mouth make a horrid crumpling sound) and falls out of the refrigerator. It thuks to the floor and rolls toward him like a hideous bowling ball, its blood-matted hair changing places with its grinning face; it rolls toward him leaving a gluey trail of blood and dismembered bits of feather behind, its mouth working around its clot of feathers.

I startle when I catch someone staring at me from only a few inches away and then realize it’s my own face reflecting back in the glass. Wild eyes, hollow cheeks, my hair in a tangled mat. Rabid. Feral. Mad. No wonder everyone is keeping a safe distance from me. The next thing I know we’ve landed back on the roof of the Training Center and they’re taking Peeta but leaving me behind the door. I start hurling

wild pumpkin--the only vegetation that had any vitality. It is a vine, remarkable for its tendency, not to spread and ramble, but to mass and mount. Its long, sharp, arrow- shaped leaves, frosted over with prickly silver, are thrust upward and crowded together; the whole rigid, up-thrust matted clump looks less like a plant than like a great colony of grey-green lizards, moving and suddenly arrested by fear.

ref·u·gee noun: a person who flees for refuge or safety We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from burning buildings into the arms of loving families. When we flee from floods and earthquakes to sleep on blue mats in community centres. We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from abusive relationships, and shooters in cinemas and shopping centres. Sometimes it takes only a day for our countries to persecute us because of our creed, race, or sexual orientation. Sometimes it takes only a minute for the missiles to rain down and leave our towns in ruin and destitution. We are, each of us, refugees longing for that amniotic tranquillity dreaming of freedom and safety when fences and barbed wires spring into walled gardens. Lebanese, Sudanese, Libyan and Syrian, Yemeni, Somali, Palestinian, and Ethiopian, like our brothers and sisters, we are, each of us, refugees. The bombs fell in their cafés and squares where once poetry, dancing, and laughter prevailed. Only their olive trees remember music and merriment now as their cities wail for departed children without a funeral. We are, each of us, refugees. Don’t let stamped paper tell you differently. We’ve been fleeing for centuries because to stay means getting bullets in our heads because to stay means being hanged by our necks because to stay means being jailed, raped and left for dead. But we can, each of us, serve as one another’s refuge so we don't board dinghies when we can’t swim so we don’t climb walls with snipers aimed at our chest so we don’t choose to remain and die instead. When home turns into hell, you, too, will run with tears in your eyes screaming rescue me! and then you’ll know for certain: you've always been a refugee.

March 28, 1987: Today I read in the New York Times that all of the officers who killed Michael Stewart were again dismissed of charges. Continually dismissed, but in their minds they will never forget. They know they killed him. They will never forget his screams, his face, his blood. The must live with that forever. I hope in their next life they are tortured like they tortured him. They should be birds captured early in life, put in cages, purchased by a fat, smelly, ugly lady who keeps them in a small dirty cage up near the ceiling while all day she cooks bloody sausages and the blood spatters their cage and the frying fat burns their matted feathers and they can nerf escape the horrible fumes of her burnt meat. One day the cage will fall to the ground and a big fat ugly cat will kick them about, play with them like a toy, and slowly kill them and leave their remains to be accidentally stepped on by the big fat pig lady who can’t see her own feet because of her huge sagging tits. An eye for an eye … I’m not afraid of anything I’d ever done. Not ashamed of anything.

I am a person of binges. I have never understood the phrase “too much of a good thing.” Look: it’s irrational, impossible. See fig. 1: when I was a child, I became obsessed with horses. I know, I know, all little girls are obsessed with horses. But I lived for them. I gorged on them. I begged for them in any incarnation: films, toys, patterns, photographs, posters. Once, I cut the hair off a Barbie and superglued it to the base of my spine. I thrilled to wear my pony tail under my clothes, in secret, my parents knowing nothing, thinking me merely human, but it rubbed off after two days, leaving long blond doll hairs clotting in the corners of the house. My birthday came, and my parents, who were still together then, splurged on an afternoon of horseback riding lessons. When it was time to leave, they found that I had knotted my hair into the horse’s mane so elaborately that they had to cut me away from it with a pair of rusted barn shears. I still have the clump of matted girl-and-horse hair hidden in a drawer, though after all the times I put it in my mouth, I admit that it is somewhat the worse for wear.

light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse’s mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that even the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer

She pottered round now, a tall vague woman in her early fifties, with a long pale face and brown eyes which her daughter Deirdre had inherited. As she pottered she murmured to herself, ‘large knives, small knives, pudding spoons, will they need forks too? Oh, large forks, serving spoons, mats, glasses, well two glasses in case Deirdre and Malcolm want to drink beer, Rhoda probably won’t … and now, wash the lettuce …’ It was nice when the warm weather came and they could have salads for supper, she thought, though why it was nice she didn’t really know. Washing a lettuce and cutting up the things to go with it was really almost as much trouble as cooking a hot meal, and she herself had never got over an old-fashioned dislike of eating raw green leaves. When her husband had been alive they had always had a hot meal in the evenings, winter and summer alike. He needed it after a day in the City. But now he was gone and Rhoda had been living with them for nearly ten years now and everyone said how nice it was for them both, to have each other, though of course she had the children too. Malcolm was a good solid young man, very much like his father, reliable and, although of course she never admitted it, a little dull. He did not seem to mind about the hot meal in the evenings. But Deirdre was different, clever and moody, rather like she herself had been at the same age, before marriage to a good dull man and life in a suburb had steadied her.

Another rain-swept day leaves everything water-logged—ponds, drains, streets, and rivers—everywhere water is overflowing. The green blades of grass in the garden lie submerged under a rippling shallow sheet of water. Through refraction, they take on magical underwater seaweed shapes. Except here, the grass is evenly cropped, so it appears as a glazed woven mat of wet-green. Rain has also left the plants and trees gleaming, bursting in plentitude. Natural irrigation in excess creates its own slow rot, a sublime slime of wet decay and birth, profusion and irresistibility. Rain has this special seductive appeal—its innocuous wet, its piercing strength, its gentle drizzle-caresses, its ability to douse and arouse. The entire charm lies in its simplicity.

Often people come to me and say "As a best-selling author with many published works to your name, and a basement full of awards, most of them in need of a good polish, you must have some words of advice for the world that you wish to share." And I do. It's this. If you have a 25lb long-haired calico cat whose fur is all matted into evil dreadlocks, and who is too fat to properly clean herself, do not put fresh batteries into an ancient beard trimmer and attempt to shave her. You will only cause distress to the cat, and create a mess. There are professionals who will happily do this kind of thing, for a small fee. Leave it to them. (This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Furball the cat, currently believed to be hiding in the attic in a severely traumatized state.)

I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew that the main house was about a quarter mile up the drive. I could leave my car here and walk it. See what’s what. But what would be the point? I hadn’t been up here in six years. The retreat probably sold the land, and the new owner probably craved privacy. That might explain all this. Still it didn’t feel right. What would be the harm, I thought, in going up and knocking on the door of the main house? Then again, the thick chain and no trespassing signs were not exactly welcome mats. I was still trying to decide what to do when a Kraftboro police cruiser pulled up next to me. Two officers got out. One was short and stocky with bloated gym muscles. The other was tall and thin with slicked-back hair and the small mustache of a guy in a silent movie. Both wore aviator sunglasses, so you couldn’t see their eyes. Short and Stocky hitched up his pants a bit and said, “Can I help you?” They both gave me hard stares. Or at least I think they were hard stares. I mean, I couldn’t see their eyes. “I

HER HUSBAND’S ALMOST HOME. He’ll catch her this time. There isn’t a scrap of curtain, not a blade of blind, in number 212—the rust-red townhome that once housed the newlywed Motts, until recently, until they un-wed. I never met either Mott, but occasionally I check in online: his LinkedIn profile, her Facebook page. Their wedding registry lives on at Macy’s. I could still buy them flatware. As I was saying: not even a window dressing. So number 212 gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw, and I gaze right back, watching the mistress of the manor lead her contractor into the guest bedroom. What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die. She’s lovely, a genuine redhead, with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back. Much prettier than her husband, a Dr. John Miller, psychotherapist—yes, he offers couples counseling—and one of 436,000 John Millers online. This particular specimen works near Gramercy Park and does not accept insurance. According to the deed of sale, he paid $3.6 million for his house. Business must be good. I know both more and less about the wife. Not much of a homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk. She practices yoga three times a week, tripping down the steps with her magic-carpet mat rolled beneath one arm, legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon. And she must volunteer someplace—she leaves the house a little past eleven on Mondays and Fridays, around the time I get up, and returns between five and five thirty, just as I’m settling in for my nightly film. (This evening’s selection: The Man Who Knew Too Much, for the umpteenth time. I am the woman who viewed too much.) I’ve noticed she likes a drink in the afternoon, as do I. Does she also like a drink in the morning? As do I? But her age is a mystery, although she’s certainly younger than Dr. Miller, and younger than me (nimbler, too); her name I can only guess at. I think of her as Rita, because she looks like Hayworth in Gilda. “I’m not in the least interested”—love that line. I myself am very much interested. Not in her body—the pale ridge of her spine, her shoulder blades like stunted wings, the baby-blue bra clasping her breasts: whenever these loom within my lens, any of them, I look away—but in the life she leads. The lives. Two more than I’ve got.

Switching on the ground-floor lights, she checked the gas jet and the main gas plug and poured water over the smoldering, half-buried charcoal in the brazier. She stood before the upright mirror in the four-and-a-half-mat room and held up her skirts. The bloodstains made it seem as if a bold, vivid pattern was printed across the lower half of her white kimono. When she sat down before the mirror, she was conscious of the dampness and coldness of her husband’s blood in the region of her thighs, and she shivered. Then, for a long while, she lingered over her toilet preparations. She applied the rouge generously to her cheeks, and her lips too she painted heavily. This was no longer make-up to please her husband. It was make-up for the world which she would leave behind, and there was a touch of the magnificent and the spectacular in her brushwork. When she rose, the mat before the mirror was wet with blood. Reiko was not concerned about this. (...) The lieutenant was lying on his face in a sea of blood. The point protruding from his neck seemed to have grown even more prominent than before. Reiko walked heedlessly across the blood. Sitting beside the lieutenant’s corpse, she stared intently at the face, which lay on one cheek on the mat. The eyes were opened wide, as if the lieutenant’s attention had been attracted by something. She raised the head, folding it in her sleeve, wiped the blood from the lips, and bestowed a last kiss. (...) Reiko sat herself on a spot about one foot distant from the lieutenant’s body. Drawing the dagger from her sash, she examined its dully gleaming blade intently, and held it to her tongue. The taste of the polished steel was slightly sweet. Reiko did not linger. When she thought how the pain which had previously opened such a gulf between herself and her dying husband was now to become a part of her own experience, she saw before her only the joy of herself entering a realm her husband had already made his own. In her husband’s agonized face there had been something inexplicable which she was seeing for the first time. Now she would solve that riddle. Reiko sensed that at last she too would be able to taste the true bitterness and sweetness of that great moral principle in which her husband believed. What had until now been tasted only faintly through her husband’s example she was about to savor directly with her own tongue. Reiko rested the point of the blade against the base of her throat. She thrust hard. The wound was only shallow. Her head blazed, and her hands shook uncontrollably. She gave the blade a strong pull sideways. A warm substance flooded into her mouth, and everything before her eyes reddened, in a vision of spouting blood. She gathered her strength and plunged the point of the blade deep into her throat.

I stared through the front door at Barrons Books and Baubles, uncertain what surprised me more: that the front seating cozy was intact or that Barrons was sitting there, boots propped on a table, surrounded by piles of books, hand-drawn maps tacked to the walls. I couldn’t count how many nights I’d sat in exactly the same place and position, digging through books for answers, occasionally staring out the windows at the Dublin night, and waiting for him to appear. I liked to think he was waiting for me to show. I leaned closer, staring in through the glass. He’d refurnished the bookstore. How long had I been gone? There was my magazine rack, my cashier’s counter, a new old-fashioned cash register, a small flat-screen TV/DVD player that was actually from this decade, and a sound dock for my iPod. There was a new sleek black iPod Nano in the dock. He’d done more than refurnish the place. He might as well have put a mat out that said WELCOME HOME, MAC. A bell tinkled as I stepped inside. His head whipped around and he half-stood, books sliding to the floor. The last time I’d seen him, he was dead. I stood in the doorway, forgetting to breathe, watching him unfold from the couch in a ripple of animal grace. He crammed the four-story room full, dwarfed it with his presence. For a moment neither of us spoke. Leave it to Barrons—the world melts down and he’s still dressed like a wealthy business tycoon. His suit was exquisite, his shirt crisp, tie intricately patterned and tastefully muted. Silver glinted at his wrist, that familiar wide cuff decorated with ancient Celtic designs he and Ryodan both wore. Even with all my problems, my knees still went weak. I was suddenly back in that basement. My hands were tied to the bed. He was between my legs but wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He used his mouth, then rubbed himself against my clitoris and barely pushed inside me before pulling out, then his mouth, then him, over and over, watching my eyes the whole time, staring down at me. What am I, Mac? he’d say. My world, I’d purr, and mean it. And I was afraid that, even now that I wasn’t Pri-ya, I’d be just as out of control in bed with him as I was then. I’d melt, I’d purr, I’d hand him my heart. And I would have no excuse, nothing to blame it on. And if he got up and walked away from me and never came back to my bed, I would never recover. I’d keeping waiting for a man like him, and there were no other men like him. I’d have to die old and alone, with the greatest sex of my life a painful memory. So, you’re alive, his dark eyes said. Pisses me off, the wondering. Do something about that. Like what? Can’t all be like you, Barrons. His eyes suddenly rushed with shadows and I couldn’t make out a single word. Impatience, anger, something ancient and ruthless. Cold eyes regarded me with calculation, as if weighing things against each other, meditating—a word Daddy used to point out was the larger part of premeditation. He’d say, Baby, once you start thinking about it, you’re working your way toward it. Was there something Barrons was working his way toward doing? I shivered.

The survivor spoke to us though, or tried to. Mumbling through that matted brown beard of his, pale as death itself. I can’t say now if it was weakness from his wounds or what it was – but we struggled to understand him. In fact we got nothing intelligible from him at all then. He seemed afraid, like any dying man probably would be, but he did seem more terrified than any dying man I’ve seen before – and I’ve seen a few in my time. Let me tell you, Corsair or not, he grabbed whatever hand would hold his, and clenched it so tight his knuckles turned white! He kept fading out as we carried him on the stretcher board the medics brought with them. Looking back, I think he tried to warn us, poor bastard. He tried to tell us to leave him behind and go, but we wouldn’t listen. We thought we were better than the Corsairs, remember? We thought we would be all moral and upright and try to help him. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ were the last words he said before losing consciousness. At least, those that we could make out. At the end of it all, he was right – as it turned out, we couldn’t even help ourselves.

Mind if I ask how you learned that?” “It was a long time ago—when I was in my last year of college. There had been some rapes around the campus and a bunch of us went to a self-defense instructor together. To tell you the truth, I was never sure that would work in a real situation. I mean, with an instructor, mats on the floor, everything rehearsed and knowing exactly what to expect—that’s one thing. But I wasn’t sure I could react the same way if a real rapist jumped out from behind a parked car.” “Now you know. He never saw it coming.” “Yeah, that worked to my advantage, too.” She sipped her coffee. “I didn’t see what he did,” he said. “I could tell by the stupid grin on his face and the shocked look on yours that something happened.” She put her cup on the bar. “Major butt grope,” she said. And she noted that Jack’s expression went instantly dark; mean, narrowed eyes, deep frown. “Whew, easy buddy, it wasn’t your butt. I saw you making a move—what were you about to do?” “Way too much,” he said. “I don’t like seeing something like that in my bar. I was watching him all night. The second he saw you, it was a target lock-on.” “He was a giant nuisance, but I’m pretty sure he’ll leave me alone now,” she said.

She had no idea how Sef couldn’t see it. The demon was right there, not ten feet away. Nikki had seen its likeness in her dreams, but the Ammut painted on mudbrick and stone was nothing like the behemoth that stood before her in the flesh. It had a great, lashing tail that swept between the walls like a whip, staining them with a black ichor that hissed as it burned through the wood. Its whole body dripped with this filth. Its thick, tangled mane was matted with it. With every step it took, it spattered gobs of the stuff onto the ground, leaving imprints of its massive, mismatched feet in its wake–part hippopotamus, part lion. Ammut flexed its claws as it took another sniff of the air, inhaling through its obscene, crocodilian snout. Its nostrils were half decayed; parts of them had come loose and flapped whenever the creature breathed. Then it let out a hoarse, staccato series of barks that made the mark in Nikki’s skull thrum wildly. She knew it was calling to her, beckoning her to seal her fate. She almost wanted to answer, to go to it and allow its rotten, toothy jaws to clamp around her soul.

INGINA-A golden shaft of sunlight cut the ghostly tissue of dawn that hung like a timeless web of mist in the rambling thicket at the river's edge. Wild grasses, weeds, and thistles bowed low beneath the weight of an overnight dew, leaving a wet and woven mat of deep greens and October browns along the unkempt nape of a broad terrace rising from the bank. The field stretched out a hundred yards or so to a silvery stand of beech, sugar maple and yellow locust at the base of a sheer granite cliff. A songbird chattered from the forested rim of the field, drawing the soft and steady applause of water pouring over the stone and grassy shallows upstream, and seeming to repeat the ancient Tutelo word for river-tak see ta, tak see ta, tak see ta.

When a child is born, he is the closest he will ever be to the image of God.”26 Jesus also said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matt. 19:14). As a grandparent, you have the privilege of furthering God’s kingdom through the legacy you leave with your grandchildren. An incredible calling indeed! As I mentioned previously, I’ve done several focus groups and spoken to thousands of parents about doing life with adult children. Sometimes the atmosphere is tense

Even as an adult, he never ate until full, would tie flat stones to his stomach to quell hunger pangs, would not have a cooking fire going for long in his home, and only ate meat on rare occasions, instead eating mostly dark, coarse bread. If no food was to be found, he would fast, and he slept on a mat woven from palm leaves.

Water. Drinking water, water purification system (or tablets), and a water bottle or canteen. Food. Anything that is long lasting, lightweight, and nutritious such as protein bars, dehydrated meals, MREs24, certain canned goods, rice, and beans. Clothing. Assure it’s appropriate to a wide range of temperatures and environments, including gloves, raingear, and multiple layers that can be taken on or off as needed. Shelter. This may include a tarp or tent, sleeping bag or survival blanket, and ground pad or yoga mat. A camper or trailer is a fantastic, portable shelter, with many of the comforts of home. If you own one keep it stocked with supplies to facilitate leaving in a hurry, as it can take several hours load up and move out if you’re not ready. In certain circumstances that might mean having to leave it behind. Heat source. Lighter or other reliable ignition source (e.g., magnesium striker), tinder, and waterproof storage. Include a rocket stove or biomass burner if possible, they’re inexpensive, take very little fuel, and incredibly useful in an emergency. Self-defense/hunting gear. Firearm(s) and ammunition, fishing gear, multi-tool/knife, maps, and compass, and GPS (it’s not a good idea to rely solely on a GPS as you may find yourself operating without a battery or charger). First aid. First aid kit, first aid book, insect repellant, suntan lotion, and any needed medicines you have been prescribed. If possible add potassium iodide (for radiation emergencies) and antibiotics (for bio attacks) to your kit. Hygiene. Hand soap, sanitizer, toilet paper, towel, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, and garbage bags. Tools. Hatchet (preferably) or machete, can opener, cooking tools (e.g., portable stove, pot, frying pan, utensils, and fuel), rope, duct tape, sunglasses, rubber tubing, and sewing kit. Lighting and communications. LED headlamp, glow sticks, candles, cell phone, charger (preferably hand crank or solar), emergency radio (preferably with hand crank that covers AM, FM, and Marine frequencies) and extra batteries, writing implements, and paper. Cash or barter. You never know how long an emergency will last. Extensive power outages mean no cash machines, so keep a few hundred dollars in small bills, gold or silver coins, or other valuables on hand.

Grace is, in many ways, reflective of the attitude we bring to the mat. It is the difference between a yoga practice that leaves you radically transformed, and an exercise class. It’s the difference between feeling full of hope and potential, and feeling like a schmuck.

The sled runners had been replaced by wheels and they traveled on a rutted, muddy road that formed a dark line between two fields of snow that occasionally showed a patch of matted, tangled weeds. Seeing them got her thinking. She wiped her face with the blanket and, digging her brush out of a nearby pack, began the arduous process of clearing the snarls from her hair. She pulled, grunted, and then sighed. Modina looked over with a questioning expression, and Arista explained by letting go of the brush and leaving it to hang. Modina smiled and crawled over to her. “Turn around,” she said, and taking the brush, the empress began working the back of Arista’s head. “You have quite the rat’s nest here.” “Be careful one doesn’t bite you,” Arista replied.

We'll learn more about how the brain operates, how matter works, and what fills up empty space. But even if we evolve into a smarter, wiser species in possession of a truckload of new scientific knowledge, we will still have no access to ultimate answers. When a smart person finally admits that some mysteries can't be solved, she can relax and rejoice. When you honor what you know to be true, that nobody knows the ultimate answers, that there is a difference between what is not yet known and what can't be known, that guesses don't really count, and that easy answers like sitting on a mat or walking in nature may soothe you but answer nothing, then you can leave mysticism behind. Then you are ready for the answer: that you are obliged to take charge of the project of your life.

When she leaves, I inspect my reflection in the mirror—the first time since arriving in Minnesota I’ve looked in a whole piece of mirror unclouded by spots and damage. A girl I barely recognize stares back. She is thin and pale, dull eyed, with sharp cheekbones and matted dark red hair, wind-chapped cheeks, and a red-rimmed nose. Her lips are scabbed, and her sweater is pilled and soiled with dirt. I swallow—she swallows. My throat hurts. I must be getting sick.

Ashok stopped for breath, and was surprised to see his father smiling. Then Ramnath said, ‘My son, you have finally realized how hard it is to earn even the smallest sum. Now you know the effort one has to put in to bring home an honest day’s wage. I think you are ready to start off on your own. I will help you in your business. Never forget the virtues of hard work and honesty.’ Ashok smiled and nodded. He had learnt a very valuable lesson from his wise father. The Bird with Golden Wings Varsha lived with her mother, who worked as a cook in a rich man’s house. Every evening, her mother returned from work with a little rice, which she would then cook for herself and her daughter. Varsha and her mother lived happily enough, satisfied with what they had. One evening, Varsha’s mother brought home some extra rice. Before leaving the next morning, she cleaned it and spread it on a mat to dry in the terrace. Then she called Varsha and said, ‘Sit here and see that no bird pecks at the rice. I will cook this for us when I return in the evening.’ Varsha sat down by the rice with a little stick in her hand. After a while, a tiny sparrow came hopping by. It looked hungrily at the grains. Varsha took pity on it and gave it a few grains. The bird ate those and flew away. Then an old crow came and cawed loudly beside her. ‘I’m hungry!’ it seemed to say. So Varsha gave it some grains too, and it flew away after eating them. Then, the strangest thing happened. A big bird with shining golden wings came and perched next to her. It was clearly very old. The bird looked at the rice spread out on the mat. Then it spoke in a beautiful voice, ‘Will you give me some rice too?’ Varsha was very surprised. ‘Go ahead,’ she said, ‘but take only a few grains, or else my mother will scold me.’ The old bird hopped forward and, in an instant, gulped down all the rice! Varsha looked in dismay at the empty mat. What would her mother say? ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked the bird. It bent its head and said softly, ‘I’m sorry. I was hungry and could not stop myself. But don’t worry, come with me to my house in the big banyan tree and I’ll give you something which will make your mother forget her anger.

With tinny drumbeats, the rain pounds the roof My teary eyes compete They can't keep up Breathe Let it go Breathe The vice on my chest tightens its razoring grip I gasp No relief If only tears could soothe the pain Then, I would look upon the tidal waves against these walls without fear Crush and roll me, I'd plead, Mold my body anew But with these tears come no healing, Just death, slow and determined This old girl, this old woman, this old soul lives here inside A tortoise outgrowing this hare's body This youthful skin encasing a crumbling frame I smooth the matted web of curls off my sweaty neck And roll my eyes at the clock How slowly the time squeaks by here in this room, In this comfortless bed I abandon the warmth from under my blanket tower and shiver The draft rattles my spine One by one, striking my vertebrae Like a spoon chiming empty wine glasses, Hitting the same fragile note till my neck shakes the chill away I swipe along the naked floor with a toe for the slippers beneath the bed Plush fabric caresses my feet Stand! Get up With both hands, Gravity jerks me back down Ugh! This cursed bed! No more, I want no more of it I try again My legs quiver in search of my former strength Come on, old girl, Come on, old woman, Come on, old soul, Don't quit now The floor shakes beneath me, Hoping I trip and fall To the living room window, I trudge My joints grind like gravel under tires More pain no amount of tears can soothe away Pinching the embroidered curtain between my knuckles, I find solace in the gloom The wind humming against the window, Makes the house creak and groan Years ago, the cold numbed my pain But can it numb me again, This wretched body and fractured soul? Outside I venture with chants fluttering my lips, Desperate solemn pleas For comfort, For mercy For ease, For health I open the plush throw spiraled around my shoulders And tiptoe around the porch's rain-soaked boards The chilly air moves through me like Death on a mission, My body, an empty gorge with no barriers to stop him, No flesh or bone My highest and lowest extremities grow numb But my feeble knees and crippling bones turn half-stone, half-bone Half-alive, half-dead No better, just worse The merciless wind freezes my tears My chin tumbles in despair I cover myself and sniffle Earth’s scent funnels up my nose: Decay with traces of life in its perfume The treetops and their slender branches sway, Defying the bitter gusts As I turn to seek shelter, the last browned leaf breaks away It drifts, it floats At the weary tree’s feet, it makes its bed alongside the others Like a pile of corpses, they lie Furled and crinkled with age No one mourns their death Or hurries to honor the fallen with thoughtful burials No rage-filled cries echo their protests at the paws trampling their fragile bodies, Or at the desecration by the animals seeking morning relief And new boundaries to mark Soon, the stark canopy stretching over the pitiful sight Will replace them with vibrant buds and leaves Until the wasting season again returns For now, more misery will barricade my bones as winter creeps in Unless Death meets me first to end it

New York’s attack, dubbed “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” by Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum, was the NBA’s most predictable. “Windshield wipers offer more variety than the Knicks’ offense,” mused New York magazine writer Chris Smith. For many years, their possessions often went something like this: a guard would dribble down to the wing and dump an entry pass into Ewing on the block. The center, forced to deal with the spacing of a crowded Twister mat, would turn and face the basket, deciding instantly whether he had enough time to get off a shot before a second and third defender could swarm. If he didn’t have a good look, he would kick the ball out to reset the offense, or, in what was often a victory for the defense, set up a wide-open perimeter try for a shooting-deficient teammate. “If this were football, every time [his teammates] shoot, they’d be accused of intentional grounding,” New York Post columnist Peter Vecsey wrote. Every now and then, there was a pick-and-roll mixed in, or a cross screen to shake things up. When the universe allowed, a Ewing kick-out would lead to a made jumper by one of the guards. But even when players misfired, Ewing was often there to corral the miss, then gracefully put it back for a score. If his teammates were leaving messes, the 7-footer was the Bounty paper towel cleaning up after them.

Chip the glasses and crack the plates! Blunt the knives and bend the forks! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates– Smash the bottles and burn the corks! Cut the cloth and tread on the fat! Pour the milk on the pantry floor! Leave the bones on the bedroom mat! Splash the wine on every door! Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl; Pound them up with a thumping pole; And when you’ve finished, if any are whole, Send them down the hall to roll! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates! So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

I put a little plant once in a pot and filled the vessel with rich mould, and the plant grew and at last broke the pot into a hundred pieces, and I found within a dense mat of fibres; the root had eaten up and displaced all the soil and swelled till it rent the vessel. It has been so with my love of you. It got planted, how I know not, in my heart, and it has thrown its roots through the whole chamber, and devoured all the substance, and woven a net of fibres in and out and up and down, and has swelled and is thrusting against the walls, till there is scarce love there any more but horrible, biting, wearing pain. I cannot kill the plant and pluck it out, or it will leave a great void. I must let it grow till it has broken up the vessel. It grows and makes root, but will not flower. There has been scarce leaf, certainly no blossom, to my love. It is all downward, inward, clogging, bursting tangle of fibre.

We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with thickset gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations—books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them. “We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too whose leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here—though I can no longer tell you where—no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot might dangle it from one ear for an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassian had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

I had to be willing to learn everything anew. To be able to stay with him for any length of time, you had to be very observant and very circumspect. You couldn’t make a sound when you walked on the floor, you couldn’t leave footprints on the floor, you couldn’t make noise when you swallowed water or opened the windows or doors. There had to be a science to everything you did—hanging out robes, taking them in, folding them up, setting out sitting mats, arranging bedding, everything. Otherwise he’d drive you out, even in the middle of the Rains Retreat. Even then, you’d just have to take it and try to use your powers of observation.

Speak no ill of the successful black male sellout, for he has achieved the goal of the community that has produced him: he has “made it,” used his skills to attain the status that would be denied him, earned entry at the door of the big house of prosperity. His only flaw is that he agreed to leave the community, its hopes, customs, aspirations, on the porch behind him. It is a matter of expedience as much as morality.

Mortarion was still the greater of them. He was still the stronger, the more steeped in preternatural gifts, but now all that he felt was doubt, rocked by the remorseless fury of one who had never been anything more than flighty, self-regarding and unreliable. All Mortarion could see just then was one who wished to kill him - who would do anything, sacrifice anything, fight himself beyond physical limits, destroy his own body, his own heart, his own soul, just for the satisfaction of the oaths he had made in the void. 'If you know what I did,' Mortarion cried out, fighting on now through that cold fog of indecision, 'then you know the truth of it, brother - I can no longer die.' It was as if a signal had been given. The Khan's bloodied head lifted, the remnants of his long hair hanging in matted clumps. 'Oh, I know that,' he murmured, with the most perfect contempt he had ever mustered. 'But I can.' Then he leapt. His broken legs still propelled him, his fractured arms still bore his blade, his blood-filled lungs and perforated heart still gave him just enough power, and he swept in close. If he had been in the prime of condition, the move might have been hard to counter, but he was already little more than a corpse held together by force of will, and so Silence interposed itself, catching the Khan under his armour-stripped shoulder and impaling him deep. But that didn't stop him. The parry had been seen, planned for, and so he just kept coming, dragging himself up the length of the blade until the scythe jutted out of his ruptured back and the White Tiger was in tight against Mortarion's neck. For an instant, their two faces were right up against one another - both cadaverous now, drained of blood, drained of life, existing only as masks onto pure vengeance. All their majesty was stripped away, scraped out across the utilitarian rockcrete, leaving just the desire, the violence, the brute mechanics of despite. It only took a split second. Mortarion's eyes went wide, realising that he couldn't wrench his brother away in time. The Khan's narrowed. 'And that makes the difference,' Jaghatai spat. He snapped his dao across, severing Mortarion's neck cleanly in an explosion of black bile, before collapsing down into the warp explosion that turned the landing stage, briefly, into the brightest object on the planet after the Emperor's tormented soul itself.

The boys prodded the brush with long sticks, tearing away the thickly matted branches and leaves. The job was slow, difficult, and unrewarding. Now and then they looked up and saw men with earphones and sounding equipment working around the shore. When the sun was high overhead, one of the men gave a shrill whistle. He signaled the others and the crew climbed the hill, carrying their lunch boxes and gear into the shade of the trees above. “They’re going to have lunch, I bet,” said Chet. “How about us?” “Soon,” Frank said briefly. Both Hardys were intent on their job.

I’d much rather have you under me on the mat than spare time.” His arm wraps around my waist, tugging me closer. “When it comes to the other marked ones, don’t risk trusting them. Not yet. They know they can’t kill you, but some of them would be happy to see you hurt given who your mother is.” “Back to that, are we?” I try to smile, but my lower lip trembles. I’m not actually upset about him leaving. That’s the lemonade talking. “Never left that,” he reminds me, keeping his voice low even though the others in the courtyard are now giving us more than enough privacy. “Keep yourself alive, and I’ll be back in seven days.” His hand slides to the side of my neck, and his thumb grazes my jawline as he lowers his mouth to only a breath above mine. “We managed to keep each other alive today. Trust me yet?” My heart jolts. I can almost taste his kiss, and gods, I want it. “With my life,” I whisper. “That’s all?” His mouth hovers above mine, all promise and no delivery. “That’s all.” Trust is earned, and he isn’t even trying. “Too bad,” he whispers, lifting his head. “But like I said, anticipation is a good thing.” Common sense crashes through the fog of lust with embarrassing ease. For fuck’s sake, what did I almost do? “No anticipation.” I outright glare, but my words lack bite. “We aren’t happening, remember? That’s your choice. I have every right to walk right back into the gathering hall and pick whomever I want to warm my bed. Someone a little more ordinary.” It’s a bluff. Maybe. Or alcohol. Or maybe I just want him to feel the same uncertainty I do. “You absolutely have every right, but you won’t.” He gives me a slow smile. “Because you’re impossible to replace?” It does not come out as a compliment. At least that’s what I tell myself. “Because you still love me.” The certainty in his eyes pricks every inch of my temper. “Fuck off and leave, Riorson.” “I would, but you’ve got a death grip on me.” He glances between our bodies. “Ugh!” I drop my hands from his waist and step back. “Go.” “See you in seven days, Violence.” He backs away, moving toward the tunnel that leads to the flight field. “Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone.

squatted at the corner of the hutch one more time. They’d been trying for an hour to get it loaded, but no matter how many different angles they attempted, it was too heavy for him and Violet to move on their own, especially with Violet’s arm still in a cast. “Let me give it a try.” Barney stepped forward, and Nate scrutinized him. He didn’t appear frail by any stretch, but the man was nearly ninety years old. Nate didn’t want to be responsible for breaking him. “Barnabas Riley, step away from that hutch right this minute.” Gladys bustled into the room, pointing a spatula at her husband. Barney stepped back. “Busted.” But he nudged Nate and whispered, “I wasn’t really going to do it. Just had to show her I’m still willing.” Nate laughed with him, but Violet gave the hutch a regretful pat. “Looks like it wasn’t meant to be.” “Hold on a minute, dear. You’re the one we want to have this.” Gladys disappeared again. Nate and Violet both looked at Barney, but he threw his hands into the air. “Even after sixty-five years of marriage, I don’t understand everything about that woman.” He winked at them again. “Keeps me on my toes.” Three minutes later, Gladys reappeared. “I called Sylvia, and she said her grandson can come over to help us.” “That’s great.” Violet pulled out a chair to sit down and stifled a yawn. She looked exhausted. “In the morning,” Gladys finished. Violet dropped the hand that had been covering her yawn. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we can come back tomorrow.” “Of course not.” Gladys waved her objection away. “You can stay with us. It’s getting late anyway. You don’t want to drive back yet tonight.” Nate stole a subtle peek at the time. It was already eight o’clock. And Violet looked ready to drop. She gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged, hoping she would understand that meant it was up to her. “I guess that would work. The store is always closed on Mondays anyway.” Her eyes traveled to Nate. “Unless you need to be in the office.” He should be. He really should be. If Dad called and he didn’t answer, he would never hear the end of it. But right now, he cared more about what Violet needed. And she needed this hutch to save her store. “I don’t need to be in the office.” “Oh, but Tony―” Violet clasped his arm. She had a point there. He couldn’t leave his dog uncared for. “Unless.” Violet pulled out her phone. “Just a second.” She wandered toward the kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear. “Looks like I’m not the only one with a mysterious woman.” Barney chuckled so hard he broke into a coughing fit. “Oh, we’re―” “Neighbors.” Gladys rested a hand on her husband’s back. “We know.” Barney stopped coughing and straightened, shooting Nate a wink. Nate was about to argue more, but Violet stepped back into the room. Her smile was enough to steal his protest. “Sophie’s going to stop by to take care of Tony tonight and tomorrow morning. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her about your super-secret hiding spot for the spare key.” Nate pretended to be shocked. “How do you know about that?” “I saw you putting it under the mat the other day when you forgot your keys, remember?” He did remember. He had been especially enchanted by her laugh that day. It was amazing how many of his recent memories involved her. Including

Page 3: My family is part of the Philippines’ tiny but entrepreneurial, economically powerful Chinese minority. Just 1 percent of the population, Chinese Filipinos control as much as 60 percent of the private economy, including the country’s four major airlines and almost all of the country’s banks, hotels, shopping malls, and major conglomerates. ... Since my aunt’s murder, one childhood memory keeps haunting me. I was eight, staying at my family’s splendid hacienda-style house in Manila. It was before dawn, still dark. Wide awake, I decided to get a drink from the kitchen. I must have gone down an extra flight of stairs, because I literally stumbled onto six male bodies. I had found the male servants’ quarters. My family’s houseboys, gardeners, and chauffeurs—I sometimes imagine that Nilo Abique [the chauffeur that murdered her aunt] was among those men—were sleeping on mats on a dirt floor. The place stank of sweat and urine. I was horrified. Later that day I mentioned the incident to my Aunt Leona, who laughed affectionately and explained that the servants—there were perhaps twenty living on the premises, all ethnic Filipinos—were fortunate to be working for our family. If not for their positions, they would be living among rats and open sewers without even a roof over their heads. A Filipino maid then walked in; I remember that she had a bowl of food for my aunt’s Pekingese. My aunt took the bowl but kept talking as if the maid were not there. The Filipinos, she continued—in Chinese, but plainly not caring whether the maid understood or not—were lazy and unintelligent and didn’t really want to do much else. If they didn’t like working for us, they were free to leave any time. After all, my aunt said, they were employees, not slaves.

I stood up, leaving a pool of sweat on the mat below. I saw the outline of my body imprinted in sweat on the chalky blue mat. A sweat angel. How gross, I thought. 'Look, Mihai,' I said, pointing at it. 'That's the sign of a hard worker right there.

There comes to Mat the sense of a lost and dead past. A past perfect, without even the force of a memory and though he resists the thought, fearing it would sadden him, it does not sadden him. There in the presence of the woods in the sounds of the water, the leaves falling, he does not fell the loss of what is past. He feels the great restfulness of that place. Its casual, perfect order. It is the restfulness of a place where the merest or the most improbable accident is made a necessity and a part of a design, where death can only give into life.

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat! Pour the milk on the pantry floor! Leave the bones on the bedroom mat! Splash the wine on every door! Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl; Pound them up with a thumping pole; And when you’ve finished, if any are whole, Send them down the hall to roll! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates! So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

After checking the manual again, she located the mat in the trunk and peeled it back, then unscrewed the big winged nut holding down a sort of cardboard cover. Beneath it—shazaam!—lay the spare tire and pieces of what the instructions assured her was the jack. If only she had the faintest notion how to assemble it. She removed the metal components and shivered again. She’d packed a set of long johns, but she wasn’t eager to spend time removing boots or stripping off jeans. Activity would warm her. Keep moving. Next the tire, which was determined not to leave its cocoon. She was strong for her size from years of hauling around big pots, but never had she cursed her small stature more. The thing weighed a ton, and it was wedged in there so tightly she couldn’t get it to budge. She’d go to the next step, then come back to the stupid spare. Nothing went better after that. Jacking up the car was a nightmare, and trying to loosen what the book called lug nuts simply wasn’t happening. Cold and scared and frustrated, Scarlett forced herself to think hard about the alternative: walking back to Sweetgrass Springs. But the town had been deserted except for Ruby’s,

When I was a kid, I had a semi-feral tomcat that was fond of leaving animal carcasses on our front step. He was huge and grey and had long, matted fur. I’d be on my way to school and open the door to find him waiting, a bird or a squirrel or a small rabbit—often headless, by this time—in his mouth or at his feet, a look of self-satisfied pride in his eyes. One morning, I found him with the carcass of a raccoon not much smaller than he was. The cat didn’t look much better than the raccoon. His ear was torn and bleeding, and patches of fur were missing from all over his body, which was punctuated by scratches and tooth marks. I vaguely remember him missing a tooth, too. But that same dark look of pride was in his eyes. I imagined what led to that scene, something akin to a bar fight gone horribly wrong, leading him to come to his friend in the early dawn and ask for help burying the body. I got a shovel and we got rid of the raccoon together.

Everyone’s unfortunately born with a memory. But this is what I tell him if I sense he’s sick over it: if you turn your thoughts over to the nothingness of what’s here, nothing land, nothing people, nothing houses, nothing lakes, nothing cold in nothing bones, you can squeeze your happiness to a pinpoint—you are here to wrestle other men like your oldest enemies, leave them damaged or worse on the mat, until you’re by yourself.

He wiped his feet on the mat, stepped into the entry, and dropped his keys and briefcase on the side table next to the piano. His son, Reid, was descending the double staircase from the left, wearing, as usual, jeans and an Indian-style gauze shirt with a tab collar and flowing hem. The shirt was a solid, businessman blue, leaving an impression that was both too formal and too bohemian. As Whit had told his son too many times, fashion speaks volumes, and this fashion choice would prevent Reid from being taken seriously. At seventeen, it was something he needed to consider, pronto

She tossed and turned on her straw mat, too filled with restless energy to leave the waking world. It was the first time since Garenoch that Finn had slept inside, and she had mixed feelings about the situation. She found that she was actually grateful for the shelter, and that thought alone worried her. What worried her even more, was that she hadn't thought about being a tree all day. She was, in fact, beginning to like life as a human. She liked being a part of what people did, beyond lending them shade, or a trunk to lean against. She liked dancing and conversing. More than the sense of community, she enjoyed adventure and having the ability to move about as she pleased, meeting new humans and creatures along the way.

As I leave, you’re sitting on the mat. You’re sitting with your whole body tensed as though in preparation for a blow. You look so mournful and helpless as I leave. You raise your head and watch as the kitchen door closes.

[The cosmic impact that started the Younger Dryas] marked the end of their story, and the end of an epoch, really. There's not a single Clovis point found anywhere in North America that's above that black mat. They're all in it or below it. And there's not a single mammoth skeleton anywhere in North America that's above it. A huge part of the die-off could have been as a direct result of the impacts themselves, but impacts and airbursts south of the ice cap, particularly as far south as New Mexico, would also have set off wildfires. There's overwhelming evidence that gigantic wildfires raged at the onset of the Younger Dryas--in fact, more soot has been found at the Younger Dryas Boundary than at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary. We did the calculations and it looks like as much as 25 percent of the edible biomass and around 9 percent of the total biomass of the planet was on fire and destroyed within days or weeks of the YDB. So in many areas if the animals weren't killed outright they wouldn't have been able to forage enough food afterwards to survive. The grass would have burned up, leaves on trees were gone. ... And you know, the other thing is that when comet fragments come in they're traveling incredibly fast and they literally punch a hole in the atmosphere. They actually push the air aside and they bring in that super cold from space, and when they explode in the air that cold plume continues to the ground and you literally have things frozen in place if they were close enough to where the plume came down. It's possible they were fried and then frozen all within a matter of seconds.

The gang of us sat around, and moved our thighs on the horsehair or on the split-bottom and stared down at the unpainted boards of the floor or at the design on the linoleum mat in the middle of the floor as though we were attending a funeral and owed the dead man some money. The linoleum mat was newish, and the colors were still bright—reds and tans and blues slick and varnished-looking—a kind of glib, impertinent, geometrical island floating there in the midst of the cornerless shadows and the acid mummy smell and the slow swell of Time which had fed into this room, day by day since long back, as into a landlocked sea where the fish were dead and the taste was brackish on your tongue. You had the feeling that if the Boss and Mr. Duffy and Sadie Burke and the photographer and the reporters and you and the rest got cuddled up together on that linoleum mat it would lift off the floor by magic and scoop you all up together and make a lazy preliminary circuit of the room and whisk right out the door or out the roof like the floating island of Gulliver or the carpet in the Arabian Nights and carry you off where you and it belonged and leave Old Man Stark sitting there as though nothing had happened, very clean and razor-nicked, with his gray hair plastered down damp, sitting there by the table where the big Bible and the lamp and the plush-bound album were under the blank, devouring gaze of the whiskered face in the big crayon portrait above the mantel shelf.

She gives a little shake of her shoulders. “No one wants to see it.” “What I don’t understand is why a man’d think you would?” Cricket takes a sip of tea. “Well, I suppose it’s a bit like when I had my cat. Tibby would bring dead things in for me. He’d proudly leave them on the mat for me to find of a morning. I know the intention was to show off and please me, but it was quite revolting.” I can’t help but laugh. “I’m not sure he’d like being compared to a dead mouse.” “No, I expect not.” She smiles. “But it does look rather like one, doesn’t it?