Memorial Benches Quotes

I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

She awaits the rain like a writer embraces metaphors, A drizzle isn't for the child who dances in the storm. Of rain that washes away the petrichor it brings, A downpour of a hail of bullets, and she calls it spring.

I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other... you can almost hear it. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories.

Far be in from me to dictate how you should assuage your guilt. Do you have a lot of it?" She bit his good shoulder. "You're about to find out." She toppled them both off the bench and onto the mat. "Well, ouch. I take it guilt doesn't bring out your gentler side.

I bought a small bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on a bench in the clearing, feeling like an old man. The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories - not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back.

Just as the room of the Inquisitor in Dr. Talos's play, with its high judicial bench, lurked somewhere at the lowest level of the House Absolute, so we have each of us in the dustiest cellars of our minds a counter at which we strive to repay the debts of the past with the debased currency of the present.

The empty mug in a coffee shop, that empty bench in a park. The sound of rain in a lonesome night, that gentle breeze on a seashore. Everything reminded him of her. And none ever could fill those voids, but her.

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened. One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street. “This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.” “And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.” They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle. As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily? And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?” “Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.” And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west. The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully. One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank. They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love. Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty. One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew: She is the 100% perfect girl for me. He is the 100% perfect boy for me. But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever. A sad story, don’t you think?

There are places in life that seep into your soul, becoming forever a part of it. You need encounter such places only once for your life to be unsuspectingly, and perhaps subtly, altered. Profound conversations and transcendental decisions are found in such places, moments forever inhabiting the deepest corners of memory: a bench in a remote park, a dark street corner, a small plaza, a doorstep. They are there, these places, in the soul, to be called up when one’s ability to carry on, to persevere, is tested.

I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.

Victoria Park looks like every other inner-city park in every other city in Canada; a large and handsome memorial to the war dead surrounded by a square block of hard-tracked grass and benches where people can sit and look at statues of politicians or at flower beds planted with petunias and marigolds, the cheap and the hardy, downtown survivors.

And so now, in the shadow of unspoken events, I watch Zampanò's courtyard darken. Everything whimsical has left. I try to study the light-going carefully. From my room. In the glass of memory. In the moonstream of my imagination. The weeds, the windows, every bench. But the old man is not there, and the cats are all gone. Something else has taken their place. Something I am unable to see. Waiting. I'm afraid. It is hungry. It is immortal. Worse, it knows nothing of whim.

Jack?" "Mmmm?" The band was playing a softer song, mellow and slow. "Why did you ask me out when you did?" I tried to sound casual. "What do you mean?" "I mean,did something specific happen to make you ask me out?" "Yes," he said. "What was it?" Had I thrown myself at Jack Caputo? Had I done something to get in Lacey's way? "You remember the first game of the season?" "Yeah," I said. It was Jack's first game as starting quarterback, the youngest starter in school history. I remembered sitting in the second row, directly behind the team bench. "After I threw for the first touchdown of the game?" "Yes." I still couldn't figure out where he was going with this.Had I flashed him or something,and blocked it out of my memory? I was pretty sure I wasn't holding up any large signs declaring my love or anything. "Our defense took the field, and I was on the bench.When I turned around to look at the fans..." He paused. Oh,no. "What did I do?" He smiled. "You looked at me.Not the game." He sighed,as if reliving the memory. I felt my face scrunch up in confusion. "That's it?" "That's it." He shrugged. "It was the first time I thought there might be a chance. I asked Jules about it." I bit my lip. "Apparently she doesn't understand that trusty sidekicks aren't supposed to spill secrets." In a flash,I was suspended in air, the back of my head inches from the ground, Jack's face a breath away from mine, his lips in a wicked grin. I gasped,more from surprise at the sudden dip than from fear. "There are no secrets between us,Becks." His smile remained,but his eyes were intense.

No, we won’t forget this.” I pull a lilac off a low branch and tuck it behind Liza’s ear. “Bonita,” I say. Before we get up, I kiss her on the cheek. “We’re going to make memories this summer so when high school is over we can meet back on this bench and remember it all, okay?” Liza smiles. “It’s a date.

When I went on anyway, my body began to grow cold, and I thought I was dead. Face pale, my dead self sat down on a bench and began to turn toward my real self, who was watching this hallucination on the screen of the night. My dead self came nearer, just as if it might want to shake hands with my real self. That's when I panicked and tried to run. But my dead self pursued me and finally caught me, entered me and controlled me. I'd felt then just the way I felt now. I felt as if a hole had opened in my head from which consciousness and memory leaked out and in their place the rash crowded in, and a cold like spoiled roast chicken. But that time before, shaking and clinging to the damp bench, I'd told myself, Hey, take a good look, isn't the world still under your feet? I'm on this ground, and on this same ground are trees and grass and ants carrying sand to their nests, little girls chasing rolling balls, and puppies running.

Annabeth took a deep breath. “I, ah . . . well, it said, You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze . . .” We waited. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.” Grover perked up. “The lost one! That must mean Pan! That’s great!” “With the dead and the traitor,” I added. “Not so great.” “And?” Chiron asked. “What is the rest?” “You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” Annabeth said, “the child of Athena’s final stand.” Everyone looked around uncomfortably. Annabeth was a daughter of Athena, and a final stand didn’t sound good. “Hey . . . we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Silena said. “Annabeth isn’t the only child of Athena, right?” “But who’s this ghost king?” Beckendorf asked. No one answered. I thought about the Iris-message I’d seen of Nico summoning spirits. I had a bad feeling the prophecy was connected to that. “Are there more lines?” Chiron asked. “The prophecy does not sound complete.” Annabeth hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly.” Chiron raised an eyebrow. Annabeth was known for her memory. She never forgot something she heard. Annabeth shifted on her bench. “Something about . . . Destroy with a hero’s final breath.

Isabelle had always thought of her mind as a garden, a magical place to play as a child, when the grown-ups were having conversations and she was expected to listen politely-- and even, although she hated to admit this, later with Edward, her husband, when listening to the particularities of his carpet salesmanship wore her thin. Every year the garden grew larger, the paths longer and more complicated. Meadows of memories. Of course, her mental garden hadn't always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn't looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn't paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of the one memory against another.

It’s like my life came to a halt at age twenty, Tsukuru Tazaki thought, as he sat on the bench in Shinjuku Station. The days that came afterward had no real weight or substance. The years passed by, quietly, like a gentle breeze. Leaving no scars behind, no sorrow, rousing no strong emotions, leaving no happiness or memories worth mentioning.

And all these existents which bustled about this tree came from nowhere and were going nowhere. Suddenly they existed, then suddenly they existed no longer: existence is without memory; of the vanished it retains nothing—not even a memory. Existence everywhere, infinitely, in excess, for ever and everywhere; existence—which is limited only by existence. I sank down on the bench, stupefied, stunned by this profusion of beings without origin: everywhere blossomings, hatchings out, my ears buzzed with existence, my very flesh throbbed and opened, abandoned itself to the universal burgeoning. It was repugnant. But why, I thought, why so many existences, since they all look alike? What good are so many duplicates of trees? So many existences missed, obstinately begun again and again missed—like the awkward efforts of an insect fallen on its back? (I was one of those efforts.)

There are so many memories, lurking in all the spaces of everywhere. They lie trapped like frozen ghosts, existing only when someone who knows of that memory thinks about that particular time and place and their mind reactivates it. We walk through these ghosts all the time, not knowing we tread the footprints of another person’s story. Just one bench on top of a viewpoint could be harbouring so many stories. It could be the bench where a couple broke up, or where another couple had their first kiss. It could be the bench where someone thought about taking their own life, or where they got the phone call that something amazing had happened. Layered in just one bench there’s an infinite amount of memories. Multiple people living near one particular bench could all share it as special without even knowing each other. We leave behind echoes of our lives everywhere we go, trapping them into the fabric of the world around us.

There's always that one bench with a great view. Where you can sit, think and plan your tomorrow. And when your tomorrow arrives, you come back to add memories to your memories. ~M. Boria

If you were to ask me what it's about, I guess I'd say that it's about how joy can seem like a distant, unreachable memory, when really it can be as close as the next park bench over--if only we have the courage.

Most of the benches bore the names of benefactors—in memory of Mrs. Ruth Klein or whatever—but my mother’s bench, the Rendezvous Point, alone of all the benches in that part of the park had been given by its anonymous donor a more mysterious and welcoming message: EVERYTHING OF POSSIBILITY. It had been Her Bench since before I was born; in her early days in the city, she had sat there with her library book on her afternoons off, going without lunch when she needed the price of a museum pass at MoMA or a movie ticket at the Paris Theatre.

In the winter you could see them sitting on the benches by the war memorial. The cold couldn't touch them in those days. They drank mulled wine from thermos flasks and smoked their cigarettes hastily, as if they might warm them up. Tamara doesn't know when the cold took hold of them. They feel it much more quickly now, the whine more, and if anyone asks them why, they reply that the world is getting colder and colder. They could also answer that they'd got older, but that would be too honest, you don't say that until you're forty and you can look back. In your late twenties you go through your very private climate disaster and hope for better times.

I breathed a sigh of relief once the mutual pledge of vows was over. At this point, stewards brought up red and gold benches so the new couple could sit down as the ceremony continued. Prince Charles and Diana also seemed relieved to have completed the critical part of the proceedings. We could see them smile at each other and exchange quiet comments to relieve the tension.

It's like my life came to a halt at age twenty, Tsukuru Tazaki though, as he sat at the bench in Shinkuku station. The days that came afterwards had no real weight or substance. The years passed by, quietly, like a gentle breeze. Leaving no scars behind, no sorrow, rousing no strong emotions, leaving no happiness or memories worth mentioning. And now he was entering middle age.

It had to do with the way the mail wasn't delivered on time, and how potholes never got fixed, or the thievery at City Hall, or the race riots, or the 801 fires set around the city on Devil's night. The Lisbon girls became a symbol of what was wrong with the country, the pain it inflicted on even its most innocent citizens, and in order to make things better a parents' group donated a bench in the girls' memory to our school.

Sitting on the bench, gazing towards the setting sun, she lost her mind in the cerebral convolutions, the mysterious nooks and crannies of the memory, she had gone backwards, seeking a world that made sense, losing her way among the labyrinths, slowly deteriorating, dimming, noiselessly being obliterated and then fading away so gradually that it was impossible to pinpoint the transition between the flickering little flame and the shadows.

My friend was aboard Sewee, untying his vessel from an ancient sunken post. “Ben?” No response. I slipped off my shoes and waded to the runabout. Pulled myself up the tiny ladder. Found Ben’s hand waiting at the rail. He effortlessly hoisted me into the boat, maneuvering my weight like it was nothing. I sometimes forgot how strong Ben was. How warm his hands could feel. Ben released me. Went back to coiling line. “Are you okay?” I immediately realized it was the wrong thing to say. “Of course I’m okay.” Gruff. Distant. I stood watching him, unsure what to say next. Unbidden, the image of a bench sprang to mind. The two of us, huddled close. Me crying in his arms. I felt blood rush to my face, was grateful for the concealing darkness. “No one expects you to like Chance,” I said finally. “Good.” Not looking up. “Because I don’t.” Another awkward silence. Then Ben huffed, “You like him enough for both of us.” I straightened, surprised. Was that what was bothering him? Jealousy? Why would Ben be jealous of Chance? After everything that spoiled boy had done to me? Did Ben think I was some ditz? That my memory reset with every pretty smile? Am I? I felt a nervous twinge in my stomach. Felt it grow. Ben. Jealous. Because of his feelings for me. The issue would not simply go away. “Ben. I . . .” Words failed. My face grew hot. Ben’s hands stopped moving. He stared at the deck, his long black hair fanning his face. He sucked in a breath, as if on the verge of something.

I breathed and walked and sat on a bench and watched a bee circle the heads of a flock passing teenagers. There was majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the willows. There was kindness. Pain is not the only touchstone for growth, I said to myself. My sleep had worked. I was soft and calm and felt things. This was good. This was my life now. I could survive without the house. I understood that it would soon be someone else's store of memories, and that was beautiful. I could move on.

The maze looms ahead, its leafless branches dripping icicles like jagged claws. After taking my first three lefts, I come upon a tiny circular area with a frozen pond at its heart. One one side sits a bench in the sun. August, who was perched there, stands as soon as he sees me. “You found it.” “Yes. It was very difficult to follow those extremely complicated directions.” He frowns. “Wait, are you joking?” “No, no…there were two whole steps. Way too many to follow unless one happens to be a genius like I am.” A grin quirks the corner o his mouth. “You are joking.” “You are observant.” He points a menacing finger at me. “I’m the one who brought lunch. You be nice, or I won’t share.” “Are you threatening me, young Master Harris?” “What if I am?” “Then I’ll have you know that I learned how to use a longsword last night, so you should be very terrified.” “It was a broadsword, actually. For a genius, your memory needs work.” I throw him a mock glare. “For a gentleman, your manners need work.” He hisses as though burnt and laughs. “Do you want a sandwich or not?

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. I hate showing up & the clerk fucking knows my name, perhaps because I’m a regular. Anyways got my shit, left…barely covering the tax. Took the long way home; to get away from that haunting typewriter. Sat down at some park bench, as I started to open my poison; A memory rushed into me. A empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the Christmas tree. I thought my dad would want another drink, so started to pour my bottle into the dirt & cried.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

Margarita squinted at the bright sun, thinking of last night’s dream and recalling how, exactly one year ago, to the day and the hour, she had sat on the same bench with him. And just as then, her black handbag lay on the bench next to her. Today he was not with her, but she spoke to him mentally: “Why don’t you let me hear from you? Have you stopped loving me? No, I somehow can’t believe it. That means you are dead. . . . But then, I beg you, release me, make me free at last to live, to breathe! . . .” Margarita Nikolayevna answered herself for him: “You are free . . . Am I keeping you?” Then she argued with him: “But no, this is no answer. No, get out of my memory, then I’ll be free. . .

On one occasion when she was feeling edgy and exhausted and her cartilage ached the way it sometimes did, she stopped off at the memorial park on her way home. It was the biggest public open space in the country. She drove up and down the long rows of granite grave markers set flush to the grass singing, “If you are going to San Francisco,” thinking about smothering Byrdie and taking the car and just running away. Her life could start over as it was meant to start – but how was that, pray tell? As a lesbian? What about those two or three months of fixation on sleeping with Lee? Is that what lesbians do? She looked back at Byrdie asleep on the back bench seat and said, “Byrdie boy, I love you so much.

I remember sitting here," he said, "and watching you over there." He pointed, but I didn't have to look. Before Cameron and I got close, I spent a lot of lunches the same way, starting off eating and reading on my special bench on the other side of the yard, followed by walking the perimeter of the playground, balancing on the small cement curb that separated the blacktop from the landscaping, around and around and around, hoping I looked busy and like it didn't matter that I had no friends. I sat next to Cameron on the bench. "What did you think when you used to watch me?" He leaned his head against the building. "That I understood you. That you'd understand me." "Do you remember the first time you talked to me? Because I don't. I've been trying to remember for years and I can't get it." "You don't remember? Wasn't me that talked to you. You talked to me." I scooted forward on the bench and looked at him. "I did?" "You walked right across the yard here at recess," he said, pointing. "Came straight up to me." He laughed. "You looked so determined. I was scared you were gonna kick me in the shins or something." I didn't remember this at all, any of it. "You said you were starting a club," he continued. "Asked me if I wanted to join." "Wait..." Something was there, at the very edge of my memory, coming into focus. "Do you remember if it happened to be May Day?" "That the one with the pole and all the ribbons?" "Yes!" "Yep. All the girls had ribbons in their hair but you." Jordana wouldn't let me wear ribbons. She said my hair was too greasy and I might give someone lice, and somehow I submitted to her logic. "I do remember," I said softly. "I haven't thought of that in forever. I kept thinking that you were the one to make friends with me first." "Nope." He smiled. "You started this whole thing. I wanted to, but you were the one with the guts to actually do it." "I think of myself as being a coward, and a baby, scared all the time." He got quiet. We watched kids in the schoolyard playing basketball. "You're not," he finally said. "You know that." He got up suddenly. "Let's go. We got one more stop.

But it wasn't their separation that was consuming my mind just then; it was Evelyn's garden. Bee had taken us there when we were children, and it was all rushing back: a magical world of hydrangeas, roses, and dahlias, and lemon shortbread cookies on Evelyn's patio. It seemed like only yesterday that my sister and I sat on the little bench under the trellis while Bee hovered over her easel, capturing on her canvas whatever flower was in bloom in the lush beds. "Your garden," I said, "I remember your garden." "Yes," Evelyn said, smiling. I nodded, a little astonished that this memory, buried so deep in my mind, had risen to the surface just then like a lost file from my subconscious. It was as if the island had unlocked it somehow.

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass. There was something familiar about this place. Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with. There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden. Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu. Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her. And beyond the moon gate was- Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth. Home. That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine flowers that Mama used to scent her skin.

PART TWO Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD CHAPTER ONE Alicia Berenson’s Diary JULY 16 I never thought I’d be longing for rain. We’re into our fourth week of the heat wave, and it feels like an endurance test. Each day seems hotter than the last. It doesn’t feel like England. More like a foreign country—Greece or somewhere. I’m writing this on Hampstead Heath. The whole park is strewn with red-faced, semi-naked bodies, like a beach or a battlefield, on blankets or benches or spread out on the grass. I’m sitting under a tree, in the shade. It’s six o’clock, and it has started to cool down. The sun is low and red in a golden sky—the park looks different in this light—darker shadows, brighter colors. The grass looks like it’s on fire, flickering flames under my feet. I took off my shoes on my way here and walked barefoot. It reminded me of when I was little and I’d play outside. It reminded me of another summer, hot like this one—the summer Mum died—playing outside with Paul, cycling on our bikes through golden fields dotted with wild daisies, exploring abandoned houses and haunted orchards. In my memory that summer lasts forever. I remember Mum and those colorful tops she’d wear, with the yellow stringy straps, so flimsy and delicate—just like her. She was so thin, like a little bird. She would put on the radio and pick me up and dance me around to pop songs on the radio. I remember how she smelled of shampoo and cigarettes and Nivea hand cream, always with an undertone of vodka. How old was she then?

But the most constant source of enchantment during those readings came from the harlequin pattern of colored panes inset in a whitewashed framework on either side of the veranda. The garden when viewed through these magic glasses grew strangely still and aloof. If one looked through blue glass, the sand turned to cinders while inky trees swam in a tropical sky. The yellow created an amber world infused with an extra strong brew of sunshine. The red made the foliage drip ruby dark upon a pink footpath. The green soaked greenery in a greener green. And when, after such richness, one turned to a small square of normal, savorless glass, with its lone mosquito or lame daddy longlegs, it was like taking a draught of water when one is not thirsty, and one saw a matter-of-fact white bench under familiar trees. But of all the windows this is the pane through which in later years parched nostalgia longed to peer.

I am afraid. I am oppressed by the darkness of every sultry night. It is so quiet and I am smothered by the heavy splendor of the silence. Why? Why are you not here? I have trifled, I know - forgive. I trifled with my luck - it broke asunder - forgive. It is so painful being alone. We will laugh us into new happiness, believe me and return, there is so much laughter yet. Look at me. Is my image still in your far-off glance? I want you as the grape wants, when ripe, to be plucked. My hair is waiting. My mouth wants you to play with it again. See, my hands beg you to envelop them in yours. They long for your hair and they long for your skin Just like a child yearns for the dream that she only sighted once. Look, it is spring. Yet it is blind, it weeps for evermore As long as we are not together, and weeps as long as the wind weeps when its dearest forest has withered. See, everything waits for us: all the lanes, all the benches All the flowers are just waiting to be plucked by me and offered to you.

As leaves fall, I remember the times when love was happier and a lot easier. The countless letters I wrote and kept. The middle bench that may still contain our names carved. The compass that I lost afterwards. As leaves fall, I stand still smiling. Soon enough, a perpetual sadness fills here and there. Like dust that piles up thickly once left unnoticed. That happiness is a memory now. As leaves fall, I realise that not everything stays and sometimes, it's better that way. The words that kept ringing in your head had always said, "Autumn leaves must fall." As leaves fall, I decide to move a step further away. Knowing full well there's no going back anymore. It's time to bid the promised farewell. Until we meet again. A hope. As leaves fall, the revelation dawns on me. The leaves are falling. As it says. The leaves are not dancing with the wind. As it says. The leaves are falling. As distant as you, from me. Me, from you. As leaves fall, I am choosing myself. I may never unlove this person. But I'll soon crystallize everything that belonged to that time and leave. I'm choosing to do that. As leaves fall. - Athira Krishnakumar

When I die, this will happen: Chris will be the first thing I see. He’ll be youthful, full of energy and that spry sense of mischief that always took me off my guard. I’ll hug him and kiss him, and feel his warm breath on my neck. We’ll walk over to a park bench--I’m sure they have those in heaven, right?--and we’ll sit down and talk. I’ll ask him about everything he’s seen. I imagine we’ll talk a long time, but that’s fine--we’ll have all eternity. Until then, I have another mission. Many missions, in fact: I have to raise our kids. I have to tend to Chris’s memory. I have the foundation and the different causes he and I believe in. There will undoubtedly be many petty annoyances to get through, problems that will take an undue amount of time and a ridiculous amount of emotional energy. From the moment I learned the horrible news of Chris’s death, people have asked what they could do for me. I have always had one simple answer: Pray. Pray that I will always hear Chris’s voice. Pray that I will always understand his spirit and be able to share it with the world. Pray that I will continue crawling forward, on my belly if I have to, until the day comes that God anoints me with those he has saved.

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those . . . we spent with a favorite book. Everything that filled them for others, so it seemed, and that we dismissed as a vulgar obstacle to a divine pleasure: the game for which a friend would come to fetch us at the most interesting passage; the troublesome bee or sun ray that forced us to lift our eyes from the page or to change position; the provisions for the afternoon snack that we had been made to take along and that we left beside us on the bench without touching, while above our head the sun was diminishing in force in the blue sky; the dinner we had to return home for, and during which we thought only of going up immediately afterward to finish the interrupted chapter, all those things with which reading should have kept us from feeling anything but annoyance, on the contrary they have engraved in us so sweet a memory (so much more precious to our present judgment than what we read then with such love), that if we still happen today to leaf through those books of another time, it is for no other reason than that they are the only calendars we have kept of days that have vanished, and we hope to see reflected on their pages the dwellings and the ponds which no longer exist.

The words seemed, as I spoke, to be my own thoughts that I owed to no one, only to some memory in my soul; but when I looked beyond the Stadium, to where they were kindling the lights on the High City in the falling dark, I saw the lamps of Samos shine through a doorway, and the wine-cup standing on the table of scoured wood. Then the pain of loss leaped out on me, like a knife in the night when one has been on one’s guard all day. The world grew hollow, a place of shadows; yet none would hold out the cup of Lethe to let me drink. “No,” I thought, “I would not drink it. For here he lives in the thing we made: the boys down there, dancing for Zeus; people watching in freedom, their thoughts upon their faces; this silly old man speaking his mind, such as it is, with none to threaten him; and Sokrates saying among his friends, ‘We shall either find what we are seeking, or free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.’” I looked down the benches, and saw him in conversation with the wine-seller, from whom Chairophon was buying a round. The flambeaux had been kindled ready for the race, showing me his old Silenos mask, and Plato and Phaedo laughing. I touched the ring on my finger, saying within me, “Sleep quietly, Lysis. All is well.

But once the work was done, we sat down in a warm patch of Sunlight outside his house where the peonies were slowly coming into bloom, and the whole world seemed covered in a fine layer of gold leaf. “What have you done in life?” Boros suddenly asked. This question was so unexpected that I instantly let myself be carried away by memories. They began to sail past my eyes, and typically for memories, everything in them seemed better, finer, and happier than in reality. It’s strange, but we didn’t say a word. For people of my age, the places that they truly loved and to which they once belonged are no longer there. The places of their childhood and youth have ceased to exist, the villages where they went on holiday, the parks with uncomfortable benches where their first loves blossomed, the cities, cafés and houses of their past. And if their outer form has been preserved, it’s all the more painful, like a shell with nothing inside it anymore. I have nowhere to return to. It’s like a state of imprisonment. The walls of the cell are the horizon of what I can see. Beyond them exists a world that’s alien to me and doesn’t belong to me. So for people like me the only thing possible is here and now, for every future is doubtful, everything yet to come is barely sketched and uncertain, like a mirage that can be destroyed by the slightest twitch of the air. That’s what was going through my mind as we sat there in silence. It was better than a conversation. I have no idea what either of the men was thinking about. Perhaps about the same thing.

What an idiot he was! Had he really thought he could get away with kissing a marquess's daughter? And not just any marquess's daughter, either. Celia looking oh so tempting in her sumptuous purple gown. Lovely, angry Celia. Lady Celia, he reminded himself. But he'd never be able to think of her like that again, not when the taste and smell of her still filled his senses. Hearing voices behind him, he slipped into an empty room to wrangle his emotions into some semblance of control. But it was no use. He could still feel her body yielding to his, still hear her rapid breathing as he'd taken every advantage. Damn her and her soft mouth and her delicate sighs and her fingers curling into the nape of his neck so that all he wanted to do was press her down onto a bench... "Hell and blazes!" He thrust his hands through his hair. What in thunder was he supposed to do about her? And why had she let him kiss her, anyway? Why had she waited until he'd made a complete fool of himself before she'd drawn that damned pistol? Oh. Right. That was why. To make a fool of him herself. To lull him into a false sense of security so she could prove she could control any situation. Well, he'd stymied that, but it was little consolation. He'd behaved like a damned mooncalf, devouring her mouth as if he were a wolf and she were supper. If he'd allowed her to speak of their kiss, she probably would have pointed out exactly how insolent he'd been. Would have warned him never to do anything so impudent again. She didn't need to tell him. He'd learned his lesson. Yes. He had. The memory of her mouth opening beneath his surged up inside him, and he balled his hands into fists. No. He hadn't. All he'd learned was that he wanted her more intensely now than ever. He wanted to kiss her again, and not just her mouth but her elegant throat and her delicate shoulder and the soft, tender mounds of her breasts... A curse exploded out of him. This was insanity! He had to stop making himself mad by thinking about her as if- "There you are, sir," said a voice behind him. I thought that might have been you who came in here." "What the hell is it?" he growled as he rounded on whoever had been fool enough to run him to ground.

Our story begins on a sweltering August night, in a sterile white room where a single fateful decision is made amid the mindless ravages of grief. But our story does not end there. It has not ended yet. Would I change the course of our lives if I could? Would I have spent my years plucking out tunes on a showboat, or turning the soil as a farmer’s wife, or waiting for a riverman to come home from work and settle in beside me at a cozy little fire? Would I trade the son I bore for a different son, for more children, for a daughter to comfort me in my old age? Would I give up the husbands I loved and buried, the music, the symphonies, the lights of Hollywood, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live far distant but have my eyes? I ponder this as I sit on the wooden bench, Judy’s hand in mine, the two of us quietly sharing yet another Sisters’ Day. Here in the gardens at Magnolia Manor, we’re able to have Sisters’ Day anytime we like. It is as easy as leaving my room, and walking to the next hall, and telling the attendant, “I believe I’ll take my dear friend Judy out for a little stroll. Oh yes, of course, I’ll be certain she’s delivered safely back to the Memory Care Unit. You know I always do.” Sometimes, my sister and I laugh over our clever ruse. “We’re really sisters, not friends,” I remind her. “But don’t tell them. It’s our secret.” “I won’t tell.” She smiles in her sweet way. “But sisters are friends as well. Sisters are special friends.” We recall our many Sisters’ Day adventures from years past, and she begs me to share what I remember of Queenie and Briny and our life on the river. I tell her of days and seasons with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion, and Silas, and Old Zede. I speak of quiet backwaters and rushing currents, the midsummer ballet of dragonflies and winter ice floes that allowed men to walk over water. Together, we travel the living river. We turn our faces to the sunlight and fly time and time again home to Kingdom Arcadia. Other days, my sister knows me not at all other than as a neighbor here in this old manor house. But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse. “Aren’t they so very sweet?

Someday, she would stand from the couch, step away from the window sill, leave the fire escape, put away the black backpack, take the rings off her neck. Someday when the music played, she would not feel him waltzing with her through the clearing under the crimson moon on their wedding night. Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed… Someday. But today with every breath of the past she colored her breath of the future, with every blink of her eye, Alexander bore himself deeper and deeper inside her until the whole of what they were together blinded her from seeing what else might be in the world for her. All she thought about was what he had loved in her, what he had needed from her, what he had wanted from her. Memory—that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort. There was no forgetting; worse, the bloodletting that went on every minute became more intense as time went on. It was as if his lips, his hands, his crown, his heart, the things that seemed almost normal, almost right in Lazarevo acquired a prescient, otherworldly sense; it was as if in their totality they took on a life they had not had before. How did they fish, or sleep, or clean? How did she go to her sewing circle? She hated herself now, flagellated herself for doing anything else, how could she have tried to live a normal life in Lazarevo with him, knowing even then that time and they were as fleeting as snowflakes? Knowing what was at stake, could he have lowered his head and walked by her, if he had known what he would lose for the hour of rapture, for the minute of bliss? How he loved to touch her. And she would sit quietly, with her legs not too close together, so that anytime he wanted to, he could: and he did. Anytime. Yes, he said, it was what a soldier on furlough wanted. Anytime wasn’t often enough. He would touch her with his fingers as she sat quietly on the bench, and then he would touch her with his mouth as she sat less quietly on the bench, there was no other time for him but now, there was no later, there was only insanity now. I will make you insane, her memory screamed at her near the winter window sill as Tatiana smelled the brine of eternity. On the outside you will walk and smile as if indeed you are a normal woman, but on the inside you will twist and burn on the stake, I will never free you, you will never be free.

Naturally, without intending to, I transitioned from these dreams in which I healed myself to some in which I cared for others: I am flying over the Champs-Élysées Avenue in Paris. Below me, thousands of people are marching, demanding world peace. They carry a cardboard dove a kilometer long with its wings and chest stained with blood. I begin to circle around them to get their attention. The people, astonished, point up at me, seeing me levitate. Then I ask them to join hands and form a chain so that they can fly with me. I gently take one hand and lift. The others, still holding hands, also rise up. I fly through the air, drawing beautiful figures with this human chain. The cardboard dove follows us. Its bloodstains have vanished. I wake up with the feeling of peace and joy that comes from good dreams. Three days later, while walking with my children along the Champs-Élysées Avenue, I saw an elderly gentleman under the trees near the obelisk whose entire body was covered by sparrows. He was sitting completely still on one of the metal benches put there by the city council with his hand outstretched, holding out a piece of cake. There were birds flitting around tearing off crumbs while others waited their turn, lovingly perched on his head, his shoulders, his legs. There were hundreds of birds. I was surprised to see tourists passing by without paying much attention to what I considered a miracle. Unable to contain my curiosity, I approached the old man. As soon as I got within a couple of meters of him, all the sparrows flew away to take refuge in the tree branches. “Excuse me,” I said, “how does this happen?” The gentleman answered me amiably. “I come here every year at this time of the season. The birds know me. They pass on the memory of my person through their generations. I make the cake that I offer. I know what they like and what ingredients to use. The arm and hand must be still and the wrist tilted so that they can clearly see the food. And then, when they come, stop thinking and love them very much. Would you like to try?” I asked my children to sit and wait on a nearby bench. I took the piece of cake, reached my hand out, and stood still. No sparrow dared approach. The kind old man stood beside me and took my hand. Immediately, some of the birds came and landed on my head, shoulders, and arm, while others pecked at the treat. The gentleman let go of me. Immediately the birds fled. He took my hand and asked me to take my son’s hand, and he another hand, so that my children formed a chain. We did. The birds returned and perched fearlessly on our bodies. Every time the old man let go of us, the sparrows fled. I realized that for the birds when their benefactor, full of goodness, took us by the hand, we became part of him. When he let go of us, we went back to being ourselves, frightening humans. I did not want to disrupt the work of this saintly man any longer. I offered him money. He absolutely would not accept. I never saw him again. Thanks to him, I understood certain passages of the Gospels: Jesus blesses children without uttering any prayer, just by putting his hands on them (Matthew 19:13–15). In Mark 16:18, the Messiah commands his apostles, “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” St. John the Apostle says mysteriously in his first epistle, 1.1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.

Crystal All's calm. And many withered leaves here lie like brown gold dipped in sunshine. The sky is very blue white clouds are rocking by. Hoar-frost blows brightness on the pine. Firs are standing fresh and green lofty tops rising into the height. The red beeches, slender and keen, listen to the eagle calling in his flight and dare go ever higher as heaven were. Lonely benches standing here and there and here a patch of grass, now half-frozen, the sun as its own darling had is chosen. (December 8, 1940) p. 5

Colors, written on December 18, 1939, at age fifteen. The blue hovers over the snow-white snow and so black are the green fir trees that the quietly fleeting-by doe is as gray as the endless sorrow, which I so gladly would ban. Steps crackle in the snow's music and winds dust all the flakes back over the white veiled trees; and benches stand like dreams. Lights fall and play with the shadows like unending ring-a-rosies. The far-away lanterns twinkle a faint glimmer a light lent from the snow's shimmer. (page 4)

The title of the poem is: Heimweh (Homesick). The pervasive feeling expressed is of utter desolation, of wrenching pain felt by a person, who longs for every stone, bench, house - everything that was home. She felt that this poem put into words her own extreme longing for what used to be home. Then the letter continues: Nettchen, how long will this go on? How do you bear it? I have been here less than three months and I imagine that I will surely go out of my mind. Especially, in these unspeakably bright and white nights that overflow with longing. Sing sometimes, late at night, when you are alone: Poljushka4. Perhaps you will understand my frame of mind.

have striking memories of the first microbiology class I took. The instructor asked me and my classmates to place our hands on the agar gel in petri dishes that had been placed on our lab benches. A week later we returned to the lab to find our petri dishes contained gnarly black, yellow, white, and green furry monstrosities growing in the precise shape of our hands. That petri dish was easily the most vivid demonstration of the importance of hand washing I’ve ever seen. We

Paul Costelloe One of the most established and experienced names in British fashion, Irish-born Paul Costelloe has maintained a highly successful design label for more than twenty-five years. He was educated in Paris and Milan, and has since become known for his expertise in fabrics, primarily crisp linen and tweed. I was commuting to London from Ireland at the time when I got a call to come to Kensington Palace. I got a minicab and threw some garments in the back of the car, and the driver drove me to Kensington Palace. The police at the gate were surprised to see a battered minicab--it was no black cab, if you know the difference between a black cab and a minicab in London (a minicab is half the price of a black cab and always more battered). Anyway, they asked me who I was. I said, “I have an appointment to see Diana,” and they told me to wait. They were reluctant to let me through the gates--it was during the major troubles in Northern Ireland, during the mid to late seventies and early eighties, when Belfast was blazing--but I was soon met at the door. I remember hauling my garments up the stairs of the palace. I fell. Diana came halfway down the stairs and gave me a hand with the garments. Then we went into the living room and had a lovely cup of tea, and I met the children, William and Harry. She tried on some of the garments right there in front of me. I (being a confirmed heterosexual) found her very attraction. I came back down the stairs, and half an hour later she made her selection. She was a perfect size 10 (that would be a U.S. size 8), except she was tall, so a few things had to be lengthened. She was an absolute delight. Afterward, I went into Hyde Park for the afternoon and sat on a bench. I just couldn’t believe what had just happened!

Blake’s grave lies half a mile or so from Slough House, in Bunhill Fields cemetery. It’s marked by a small headstone, also dedicated to his wife Catherine, and is out in the open, at one end of a paved area lined with benches and sheltered by low trees. The stone doesn’t mark the couple’s exact resting place, but indicates that their remains are not far off. Next to it is a memorial to Defoe; Bunyan’s tomb is yards away. Nonconformists all. Whether that was

I’m sorry,” she said quietly, knowing that he was thinking about Mark Bennett, the friend he hadn’t been able to save. “I know why this medal is so odious to you.” Christopher made no reply. From the near-palpable tension he radiated, she understood that of all the dark memories he harbored, this was one of the worst. “Is it possible to refuse the medal?” she asked. “To forfeit it?” “Not voluntarily. I’d have to do something illegal or hideous to invoke the expulsion clause.” “We could plan a crime for you to commit,” Beatrix suggested. “I’m sure my family would have some excellent suggestions.” Christopher looked at her then, his eyes like silvered glass in the moonlight. For a moment Beatrix feared the attempt at levity might have annoyed him. But then there was a catch of laughter in his throat, and he folded her into his arms. “Beatrix,” he whispered. “I’ll never stop needing you.” They lingered outside for a few minutes longer than they should have, kissing and caressing until they were both breathless with frustrated need. A quiet groan escaped him, and he tugged her up from the bench and brought her back into the house.

Coyote Mountain too much for her, alone with pine trees up to your neck, wooden bench by the Pecos River which runs silver in the winter untold. Dust-bit dirt lonely Indians with wet brown bellies which the moon shines upon like a frosty lake, the silver show of market stalls and paintings of four pitiful horses likes of which the Spanish brought under the Mexican memory of nightfall but the old Ming china-woman on her rickety bicycle with broken straw hat with bow-legged strength,simply; the perfect depiction of the fellaheen world riddled with ancient endeavour, the old china women of the world you’ll find them so perfect in all your cities under the twinkle of stars. The would be fishermen of dawn, collected wintery downpours and sunlight situations which never beckon further than his share, meant on this earth , match stick motels which warp your loving tales of good mornings or whichever is left.

Now he wondered what use it would be. For Kaspar’s death would not bring back his father, Elk’s Call at Dawn, or his mother, Whisper of the Night Wind. His brother, Hand of the Sun, and his little sister Miliana would remain dead. The only time he would hear the voice of his grandfather, Laughter in His Eyes, would be in his memory. Nothing would change. No farmer outside Krondor would suddenly stand up in wonder and say, “A wrong has been righted.” No boot-maker in Roldem would look up from his bench and say, “A people has been avenged.

I was barely breathing now, my head felt light. I stumbled to the nearest bench and I clasped my hands together, my fingers gripping each other painfully in an attempt to feel useful. Their job had been to hold fast and it had been so long since they had been empty. They had done their job well, they had clung to those memories even in the dead of night when I was fast asleep, remaining vigilant, keepers of my heart’s most inner desires. My icy hands with their narrow fingers had done my heart's work for so long that they felt bereft now. Good sense was still with me and it reminded me that it was time, way past time. It spoke of better days and of substance, of actuality. It asked for the hardest thing, trust.

When you move to another country, the only thing that stays in your memory is your house, the tree next to your house, and the bench," Igor tells me, as a mortified Daniela sighs. She had warned me that her father liked to speak in metaphors. "He has a metaphor for every situation in life," she says as he smiles and ignores her. On that trip in 1995, he founds out that the house was gone, the tree cut down and the bench burnt. "The only thing in your memory and now it's nothing. Even after only four years, I realized that Israel is my home." Their feelings track with what some scholars of diaspora and return immigration say about the relegation of the country of origin into the realm of nostalgia and memory after just a few years in the new homeland.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. Some nights you feel like you're on an alien planet or some kind of time machine entering a liquor store with its neon signs and retro touches; besides the new done up stores looking like a polished toilet. I prefer the beaten down, rough and strange liquor store. I’m a regular and the man at the counter always asked me about my latest book, he told me to stay away and write until old age. Anyways got my shit, walked out and the alarm beep went off, barely covering the tax. Took the long way home, to get away from that haunting typewriter. Sat down at some park bench, as I started to open my poison, a memory rushed into me. A empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the Christmas tree. I thought my dad would want another drink, so started to pour my bottle into the dirt and cry as the moon went over the horizon and crossed into the section where my heart was filled up with the hidden moons glow.

Autumnal Leaves & The One Who Greaves! Leaves, few green, and many pale leaves, Nature greaves, as Autumn their life steals, And casts them into the lap of gravity, As it leaps at them like a predator that is remorseless and beastly, One by one, all pale leaves with red veins lie striven on different surfaces, Of parks, gardens, pedestrians and that long promenade where summer still exists in traces, In those pine needles still hanging on the tree of life, Piercing deeper and deeper in the true spirit of life’s endless strife, And the aching branches sigh a little louder with every new piercing, But they sustain the pain in hope of adventing Spring, And the river that still flows merrily through the fringes of the town, Looks at the falling, pale leaves and aching pine trees, with an ever deepening frown., The cold cast iron benches on the promenade lie empty, Where just a few months ago lovers kissed in an absolute feeling of felicity, Now occupied occasionally by the regular joggers trying to understand why it rushes, this ever flowing river, Unaware and heedless towards the lovers’ loss and the naked branches with green leaves fewer, And nature, the true lover of us all, Yet thanks the seemingly melancholic season of fall! For to better preserve the heritage of beauty, Time and death too need to fulfil their duty’ For what exists in the form of beautiful memories, Resides in the sanctuary of immortality just like the sweet taste of last season’s red cherries!

her mental garden hadn’t always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn’t looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn’t paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of one memory against another. But now that she was older and had time, she found more often than not that she was lost—words, names, her children’s phone numbers arriving and departing from her mind like trains without a schedule.

Sestina" For a week now our bodies have whispered together, telling each other secrets you and I would keep. Their language, harder and more tender than this, wakes us suddenly in the half dawn, tangled dragons on their map. They have a plan. We are stranded travelers who plan to ditch our bags and walk. The hill wind whispers danger and rain. We are going different ways. That tangled thornbush is where the road forks. The secrets we told on the station bench to keep awake were lies. I suspect from your choice of language that you are not speaking your native language. You will not know about the city plan tattooed behind my knee. But the skin wakes up in humming networks, audibly whispers over the dead wind. Everybody’s secrets jam the wires. Syllables get tangled with bus tickets and matchbooks. You tangled my hair in your fingers and language split like a black fig. I suck the secrets off your skin. This isn’t in the plan, the subcutaneous transmitter whispers. Be circumspect. What sort of person wakes up twice in a wrecked car? And we wake in wary seconds of each other, tangled damply together. Your cock whispers inside my thigh that there is language without memory. Your fingers plan wet symphonies in my garrulous secret places. There is nothing secret in people crying at weddings and singing at wakes; and when you pack a duffel bag and plan on the gratuitous, you will still tangle purpose and habit, more baggage, more language. It is not accidental what they whisper. Our bodies whispered under the sheet. Their secret language will not elude us when we wake into the tangled light without a plan.

Andrei rested on a bench directly in front of a grave that belonged to: 'A father, hard worker, and beloved friend.' He leaned back, resting in the cemetery, and with each second, his desire to know more about this man 'Yeah, he’s a father, hard worker, and beloved friend. Weren’t we all at some point? What’s his kink? The worst thing he’s done to a person? The greatest thing he’s good at?' he thought. That’s what Andrei wanted to know. Not titles the man himself would disapprove of. What good was a proper impression in a cemetery filled with thousands of proper impressions? One must be indecent. So Andrei closed his eyes and imagined the father who worked hard and was a beloved friend. Maybe his kink was that he needed to do it in public—in the restroom after a date or at church during mass. Maybe the worst thing he had ever done was work so hard for his family that he never once saw them. Maybe the best thing he was good at was giving gifts to his friends. Yes, that’s it. He never gave money or handed them gift cards, but instead gave his brothers exactly what filled them the most. One year, he gave a notebook to his buddy John with the same line written over and over in painful cursive. The line said: 'Happy Birthday, you get thirteen hours of my life' and repeated until you could see the traces of hand cramps squiggling for life on the forty-second page. 'What a good man,' imagined Andrei. 'Hell of a mate.

The life of a refugee, which we opted for, after years of deprivation, was plain misery. We had not washed for days, we had hardly eaten anything. Some Jewish community representatives came to see who these refugees were, where they came from. A day or two later, we were allowed to settle in an empty hotel building. We all slept on floors, but the place was clean and empty. We could wash ourselves and some of our personal laundry, while in the synagogue we stretched out under the benches.

For many of us, the act of waiting is among our most lasting and evocative memories. Some travelers, like my husband when he was a boy, were lucky enough to wait for ferries, where there were always the sound of ships, the small of the sea, and the sight of wheeling gulls. He remembers plain wooden benches and the sound of voices and feet echoing from hard wooden floors and walls. The cheerful newsstand was the colorful central presence in these austere stations, before plastic and the paperback explosion. Waiting for the Dartmouth-Halifax ferry in Nova Scotia, he marveled at the size of the Buffalo Sunday Times, and bought the first issue of the New Yorkers, with Eustace Tilley on the cover. Waiting, as well was travel, can broaden the mind.

monstrosities of tall "monuments" and draped urns. One of the latter, the biggest and ugliest in the graveyard, was sacred to the memory of a certain Alec Davis who had been born a Methodist but had taken to himself a Presbyterian bride of the Douglas clan. She had made him turn Presbyterian and kept him toeing the Presbyterian mark all his life. But when he died she did not dare to doom him to a lonely grave in the Presbyterian graveyard over-harbour. His people were all buried in the Methodist cemetery; so Alec Davis went back to his own in death and his widow consoled herself by erecting a monument which cost more than any of the Methodists could afford. The Meredith children hated it, without just knowing why, but they loved the old, flat, bench-like stones with the tall grasses growing rankly about them. They made jolly seats for one thing. They were all sitting on one now. Jerry, tired of leap frog, was playing on

His father's funeral was a memory of darkness and mourning. He remembered sitting between his mother and his Uncle Keith on the bench in the church. They'd brought in the preacher from Friendly, California, Reverend Forbes; a skinny, stick of a man with wavy hair and wild eyes. He'd glared at them from the front of the church as if they'd all been caught masturbating in a closet, not like a man of God who was troubled over the loss of a fallen comrade.

Defeated, Jesse sat down beside Esther, collapsing onto the cold bench. She was running something back and forth under her nose, sniffing it. It was a cinnamon stick. Forgetting all about John for a moment, he stared at her with a fresh curiosity. “What are you doing?” “My mother loved the smell of cinnamon so much she’d rub it on her clothes.” She inhaled deeply. “Sometimes on her neck too. It’s my favorite memory. I always keep a stick of cinnamon in my purse so I can remember her anytime I want.” Jesse responded sincerely. “That’s nice.” He wished he could carry every scent with him that he would need to remember everyone and everything he ever loved. Licorice. The beach. Bubble gum. Dandelion weeds. Cigarettes. Ratty old comic books. Opening her purse, Esther carefully placed the stick of cinnamon back inside and sealed it tight again. She inhaled deeply through her nose, bringing herself back to reality. She asked softly, “You’re the young man who was sleeping with Missus Galloway, aren’t you?” Jesse glanced quickly over to John, hoping he didn’t hear her words. It was obvious he hadn’t. “How did you know that?” Jesse asked her quietly. “Your smell was all over that house,” Esther said, tapping her nose.

The voice went into his head, bored down through his memories, riffled through his fears, found the right levers, battened onto them, and pulled. In Moist’s case, it found Frau Shambers. In the second year at school, you were precipitated out of the warm, easygoing kindergarten of Frau Tissel, smelling of finger paint, playdough, and inadequate toilet training, and onto the cold benches governed by Frau Shambers, smelling of Education. It was as bad as being born, with the added disadvantage that your mother wasn’t there. Moist

Denny turned to Cecily and laid a hand on her wrist. “If you say you encountered a werestag last night, I believe you. Implicitly.” “Thank you, Denny.” She gave him a warm smile. How sweet. Truly, it made Luke’s stomach churn. Ignoring Brooke’s grumbling objection, Luke swiped a roll from his neighbor’s plate and chewed it moodily. He ought to be rejoicing, he supposed, or at least feeling relieved. She should forget him, she should marry Denny, the two of them should be disgustingly happy. But Luke could not be so charitable. For four years, she’d held on to that memory of their first, innocent kiss—and he had too. And he liked believing that no matter what occurred in the future—even if she married Denny, even if an ocean divided them—his and Cecily’s thoughts would always wander back to the same place: that graying bench tucked beneath the arbor in Swinford Manor’s side garden. He didn’t want to believe that she could forget that night. But even now, as she buttered another point of toast, he could sense her mind straying . . . and she wasn’t kissing him on a garden bench. She was deep in the forest with a blasted white stag. Damn it, it wasn’t right. When she lay abed at night, she shouldn’t see charging boars and violent tussles. She should dream of the scent of night-blooming jasmine and the texture of organdy and the distant strains of an orchestra playing a stately sarabande. As he had, all those freezing, damp nights. As he would, in all the bitter years to come.

Why am I getting so worked up over this? Because I like him and I feel like he’s telling me, in code, that I’m not worth his time. That starting something with me would be a mistake. I’m officially giving up being logical about this. He should too. I already know it’s going to suck saying good-bye, so he should kiss me and at least give me a tingly memory to take back with me. “I might be different.” I clench my teeth when I realize I said that out loud, keeping myself from saying any more. “Pippa.” He breathes a sigh, eyes looking everywhere but at me. “You are different.” I slowly turn toward him on the bench, pleading with my eyes for him to look at me. Footsteps crunching gravel behind me rob me of my daydream, and an older couple approaches the metal railing near the cliff edge. The tired-looking woman glances back at the bench with longing. “You can sit here,” Darren says to her. He clasps my hand, sending a current up my arm to my chest. “We were just leaving.” He leads me back down the path and for the brief moment he keeps hold of my hand, it’s the only thing anchoring me to the ground.

First grade teacher Emily Towson always does the right thing. But in her dreams, she does bad, bad things with the town’s baddest boy: Tanner O’Connor. But when he sells her grandmother a Harley, fantasy is about to meet a dose of reality. Tanner spent two hard years in prison, with only the thought of this “good girl”to keep him sane. Before either one thinks though, they’re naked and making memories on his tool bench. Now Tanner’s managed to knock- up the town’s “good girl”and she’s going to lose her job over some stupid “morality clause”if he doesn’t step up.

The guys had made log benches for spectators, back when they were twelve and had visions of every girl in class lining those benches, swooning as they showed off in the ring. Never quite worked out that way--if there were spectators, they were more likely to be heckling than swooning--but the memory made me smile as I lowered myself quietly onto the bench behind Daniel.

The guys had made log benches for spectators, back when they were twelve and had visions of every girl in class lining those benches, swooning as they showed off in the ring. Never quite worked out that way--if there were spectators, they were more likely to be heckling than swooning--but the memory made me smile as I lowered myself quietly onto the bench behind Daniel. He was shadowboxing, throwing punches and dodging an imaginary opponent. He was dressed in his usual gear--sweatpants and a tank top, both emblazoned with the school logo. I sat there and watched him, muscles flexing, sweat dripping from his dark blond hair, spraying with every swing, the silence punctuated by soft grunts when a blow seemed right and frustrated snorts when it didn’t. As I watched him, I started to relax. This was familiar. The sight, the sounds, the feel of the bench under my fingers, even the faint smell of perspiration--it was familiar and it was real and it made the last few hours drift away, wisps of a nightmare disconnected from reality. Finally, he sensed me there and danced in a circle, fists falling to his sides, feet still moving. His face lit up in a grin so big it chased away the last of my worries.

and you’re a good match.’ ‘You have a very precise memory.’ ‘It was yesterday.’ ‘I should have told you he keeps a mistress and ignores me.’ Reacher smiled. He said, ‘Good night, Mrs Mackenzie.’ She left him there, the same as the night before, alone in the dark, on the concrete bench, looking at the stars. At that moment a mile away, Stackley clicked off a phone call and parked his beat-up old pick-up truck in a lot behind an out-of-business retail enterprise three blocks from the centre of town. Earlier in his life he had favoured expensive haircuts, and one time when waiting in the salon he had read a magazine that said success in business depended entirely on ruthless control of costs. Thus wherever possible he slept in his truck. Hence the camper shell. A motel would take what he made on two pills. Why give it away? The old gal across the Snowy Range had bought a box of fentanyl patches, but he had given her one he had already opened, an hour before, very carefully, so he could skim out a patch all his own, for his pocket, for later. The old gal would never notice. If she did, she would assume she was too stoned to count right. A natural reaction. Addicts learned to blame themselves. The same the world over. He took scissors from his glove box, and he cut a quarter-inch strip off the patch, and he slipped it under his tongue. Sublingual, it was called. Another magazine in the same salon said it was the best method of all. Stackley couldn’t argue. At that moment sixty miles away, in the low hills west of town, Rose Sanderson was putting herself to bed. She had pulled down her hood, and taken off her silver track suit top. Under it was a T-shirt, which she took off, and a bra, likewise. She peeled the foil off her face. She used her toothbrush handle to scrape excess ointment off her skin. She buttered it back on the foil. With luck she might get one more day out of it. She ran her sink full of cool water. She took a breath, and held her face under the surface. Her record was four minutes. She came up and shook her head. Her

Old Jiko’s past is very far away, but even if the past happened not so long ago, like my own happy life in Sunnyvale, it’s still hard to write about. That happy life seems realer than my real life now, but at the same time it’s like a memory belonging to a totally different Nao Yasutani. Maybe that Nao of the past never really existed, except in the imagination of this Nao of the present, sitting here in a French maid café in Akiba Electricity Town. Or maybe it’s the other way around. If you’ve ever tried to keep a diary, then you’ll know that the problem of trying to write about the past really starts in the present: No matter how fast you write, you’re always stuck in the then and you can never catch up to what’s happening now, which means that now is pretty much doomed to extinction. It’s hopeless, really. Not that now is ever all that interesting. Now is usually just me, sitting in some dumpy maid café or on a stone bench at a temple on the way to school, moving a pen back and forth a hundred billion times across a page, trying to catch up with myself.