Memories Flooding Back Quotes

The cord, a familiar voice said. Remember your lifeline, dummy! Suddenly there was a tug in my lower back. The current pulled at me, but it wasn't carrying me away anymore. I imagined the string in my back keeping me tied to the shore. "Hold on, Seaweed Brain." It was Annabeth's voice, much clearer now. "You're not getting away from me that easily." The cord strengthened. I could see Annabeth now- standing barefoot above me on the canoe lake pier. I'd fallen out of my canoe. That was it. She was reaching out her hand to haul me up, and she was trying not to laugh. She wore her orange camp T-shirt and jeans. Her hair was tucked up in her Yankees cap, which was strange because that should have made her invisible. "You are such an idiot sometimes." She smiled. "Come on. Take my hand." Memories came flooding back to me- sharper and more colorful. I stopped dissolving. My name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.

You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for hourse and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. "Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory--what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our "flooding.

But the thought of laying a hand on someone brings back a world of memories, feelings, a flush of power I experience only when I make contact with skin not immune to my own. It's a rush of invincibility; a tormented kind of euphoria; a wave of intensity flooding every pore in my body. I don't know what it will do ti me. I don't know if I can trust myself to take pleasure in someone else's pain.

She’s Parisian, which is to say she’s melancholy. Her mood responds to the changing colours of her city. She can feel a sudden surge of sorrow or even hope for no reason at all. In the blink of an eye, all those lost memories and smells come flooding back, reminding her of loved ones who are no longer there. And time passing by.

He hangs on now, pressing his hand lightly against the wall, below the window, waiting for the familiar arrow of pain. Only there is none. An oddly pleasant swell of memory, a wave of warmth flooding over him, sliding back, slowly. It is a first

The burning eyes did not come back, but memories did, came flooding in. The words. Always the words. Divorce.

Suddenly the full long wail of a ship's horn surged through the open window and flooded the dim room - a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale's back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory of voyages beyond counting, the joys, the humiliations: the sea was screaming. Full of the glitter and the frenzy of night, the horn thundered in, conveying from the distant offing, from the dead center of the sea, a thirst for the dark nectar in the little room.

He'd loved Lily so deeply that it changed his biology. Standing here now, it seemed his love for her hadn't gone away, it had just been vacuum-sealed and stored. Back in her presence, the physical memory of his infatuation was released in a deluge, gasping to life, and adrenaline flooded his bloodstream.

Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all have our inner fears and misreplaced feelings of guilt.

What is it? The ordinary is EXTRAORDINARY. The ordinary is extraordinary. The ordinary is the thing we want back when someone we love dies. When someone dies or leaves or falls out of love with us. We call it "little things". We say, "it's the little things I miss most." The ordinary things. It's the little thing that brings them back to us unexpectedly. We say "reminds us" but it is more than reminding-it's a conflagration-it's an inundation-Both fire and flood is memory. It's spark and breach so ordinary we do not question it. The atom split. The little thing.

We're free agents. We can do what we want." Free agents. When my mother used those words she'd wave her keys. "We're like two bachelorettes," she'd say as we backed out of the drive. The road she took was always by the sea. Floods never put her off. "It'll pass" she'd say when I braced myself in the seat. If a wave hit the car, she'd drive on, floating sometimes for seconds. The wipers could clear off the sand and small stones. Seaweed was the problem. Not the one with poppers. That landed with a thud and rolled like a body off the windscreens. No, the problem was the smaller stuff, bright green and fine that wrapped itself like a feather boa around the side mirror. Usually, with one hand, she could throw it off. But sometimes, it took both her hands as if it were a scarf around Isadora Duncan's neck.

October air, complete with dancing leaves and sighing winds greeted him as he stepped from the bus onto the dusty highway. Coolness embraced. The scent of burning wood hung crisp in the air from somewhere far in the distance. His backpack dropped in a flutter of dust. He surveyed dying cornfields from the gas station bus stop. Seeing this place, for the first time in over twenty years, brought back a flood of memories, long buried and forgotten.

An old girlfriend is a gun in your belly. It's no longer loaded, so when you see her, all you feel is the hollow mechanical click in your gut, and possibly the ghost of an echo, sense memory from when it used to carry live rounds. Occasionally, though, there's a bullet you missed, lying dormant in its overlooked chamber, and when that trigger gets pulled, the unexpected gunshot is deafening even as the forgotten bullet rips its way through the tissue and muscle of your midsection and out into the light of day. Seeing Carly is like that. Even though we haven't spoken in almost ten years, it's an explosion, and in that one instant every memory, every feeling, comes flooding back as fresh as if it were yesterday.

I closed what little distance was left between us, one hand sliding through his soft hair, the other gathering the back of his shirt into my fist. When my lips finally pressed against his, I felt something coil deep inside of me. There was nothing outside of him, not even the grating of cicadas, not even the gray-bodied trees. My heart thundered in my chest. More, more, more—a steady beat. His body relaxed under my hands, shuddering at my touch. Breathing him in wasn’t enough, I wanted to inhale him. The leather, the smoke, the sweetness. I felt his fingers counting up my bare ribs. Liam shifted his legs around mine to draw me closer. I was off-balance on my toes; the world swaying dangerously under me as his lips traveled to my cheek, to my jaw, to where my pulse throbbed in my neck. He seemed so sure of himself, like he had already plotted out this course. I didn’t feel it happen, the slip. Even if I had, I was so wrapped up in him that I couldn’t imagine pulling back or letting go of his warm skin or that moment. His touch was feather-light, stroking my skin with a kind of reverence, but the instant his lips found mine again, a single thought was enough to rocket me out of the honey-sweet haze. The memory of Clancy’s face as he had leaned in to do exactly what Liam was doing now suddenly flooded my mind, twisting its way through me until I couldn’t ignore it. Until I was seeing it play out glossy and burning like it was someone else’s memory and not mine. And then I realized—I wasn’t the only one seeing it. Liam was seeing it, too. How, how, how? That wasn’t possible, was it? Memories flowed to me, not from me. But I felt him grow still, then pull back. And I knew, I knew by the look on his face, that he had seen it. Air filled my chest. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, I didn’t want—he—” Liam caught one of my wrists and pulled me back to him, his hands cupping my cheeks. I wondered which one of us was breathing harder as he brushed my hair from my face. I tried to squirm away, ashamed of what he’d seen, and afraid of what he’d think of me. When Liam spoke, it was in a measured, would-be-calm voice. “What did he do?” “Nothing—” “Don’t lie,” he begged. “Please don’t lie to me. I felt it…my whole body. God, it was like being turned to stone. You were scared—I felt it, you were scared!” His fingers came up and wove through my hair, bringing my face close to his again. “He…” I started. “He asked to see a memory, and I let him, but when I tried to move away…I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t move, and then I blacked out. I don’t know what he did, but it hurt—it hurt so much.” Liam pulled back and pressed his lips to my forehead. I felt the muscles in his arms strain, shake. “Go to the cabin.” He didn’t let me protest. “Start packing.” “Lee—” “I’m going to find Chubs,” he said. “And the three of us are getting the hell out of here. Tonight.” “We can’t,” I said. “You know we can’t.” But he was already crashing back through the dark path. “Lee!

Whenever I returned I found a city that was spineless, that couldn’t stand up to changes of season, heat, cold, and, especially, storms. Look how the station on Piazza Garibaldi was flooded, look how the Galleria opposite the museum had collapsed; there was a landslide, and the electricity didn’t come back on. Lodged in my memory were dark streets full of dangers, unregulated traffic, broken pavements, giant puddles. The clogged sewers splattered, dribbled over. Lavas of water and sewage and garbage and bacteria spilled into the sea from the hills that were burdened with new, fragile structures, or eroded the world from below. People died of carelessness, of corruption, of abuse, and yet, in every round of voting, gave their enthusiastic approval to the politicians who made their life unbearable.

Only two weeks since he had left, and it was already happening. Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories. Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital, suddenly, that she know. Laila closed her eyes. Concentrated. With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion—like the phantom pain of an amputee. Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grown woman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set, something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath her feet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, would set off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would come rushing back. The spontaneity of it. Their astonishing imprudence... It would flood her, steal her breath. But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave her feeling deflated, feeling noting but a vague restlessness.

Only, when I am in bed, at dawn, when all that can be heard in Paris is the sound of cars, my memory betrays me: summer, with everything I remember of it, comes flooding back. Anne, Anne! I repeat that name very softly to myself, over and over in the dark. Then something stirs within me with eyes closed, I greet by its name, sadness: Bonjour tristesse.

No Child of Yours I saw a child hide in the corner So I went and asked her name She was so naive and so petite With such a tiny frame. 'No one,' she replied, that's what I am called I have no family, no one at all I eat, I sleep, I get depressed There is no life, I have nothing left.' 'Why hide in the corner?' I had to ask twice Because I've been hurt, it not very nice I tried to stop it, it was out of my control I feared for myself I wanted to go. I begged for my sorrow to disappear I turned in my bed, oh God, I knew they were near 'So come on little girl, where do you go A path ahead, or a path to unknown?' With that she arose, her head hung low She held herself for only she knows Her tears held back, her heart like ice It looks as though she has paid the price. The ice started melting, her tears to flow The memories flood back, still so many years to go The pain, the anger all built up inside Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It will get better, just wait and see You'll get a life, though you'll never be fire Open your heart and love yourself The abuse you suffered was NOT your fault.

It is because of this sea between us. The earth has never, up to now, separated us. But, ever since yesterday, there has been something in this nonetheless real, perfectly Atlantic, salty, slightly rough sea that has cast a spell on me. And every time I think about Promethea, I see her crossing this great expanse by boat and soon, alas, a storm comes up, my memory clouds over, in a flash there are shipwrecks, I cannot even cry out, my mouth is full of saltwater sobs. I am flooded with vague, deceptive recollections, I am drowning in my imagination in tears borrowed from the most familiar tragedies, I wish I had never read certain books whose poison is working in me. Has this Friday, perhaps, thrown a spell on me? But spells only work if you catch them. I have caught the Tragic illness. If only Promethea would make me some tea I know I would find some relief. But that is exactly what is impossible. And so, today, I am sinning. I am sinking beneath reality. I am weighted down with literature. That is my fate. Yet I had the presence of mind to start this parenthesis, the only healthy moment in these damp, feverish hours. All this to try to come back to the surface of our book... Phone me quickly, Promethea, get me out of this parenthesis fast!)

I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?

I keep finding the ashes of the man I unequivocally loved, everywhere. Everytime, I go to bed, they are displaced about my covers when memories flood back in my mind. When I glance at my skin, the ashes are smeared on my skin like hand prints from a tragic crime scene. When you cross my mind, the ashes of moments of intimacy fall to my heart, my body forcefully expell them through my lungs and tear ducts. The ashes spew out in an eruption of utter chaos. The ashes block out my perception of love and self value. My sight is distorted to truth and trust. The particles of ashe prevent me from forgetting. ANONYMOUS

Why at the beginning of things is there always light? Dorrigo Evans' earliest memories were of sun flooding a church hall in which he sat with his mother and grandmother. A wooden church hall. Blinding light and him toddling back and forth, in and out of its transcendent welcome, into the arms of women. Women who loved him. Like entering the sea and returning to the beach. Over and over.

The wave of memory had submerged me for a whole minute, while I'd just sat staring and let it all come flooding back.

He thinks he will drown as the memories flood back, he cannot breathe, the lock is breached and his lungs are filled too bursting. But memories are seldom fatal.

The drought was the very worst When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst It was months and months of back and forth You're still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can't wear anymore There was nothing left to do When the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room So I punched a hole in the roof Let the flood carry away all my memories and texts from you 6 years sober, I must admit Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it 6 years older, I won't give in Now that I'm clean I'm never gonna risk it.

What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas, a thing now of the past!), and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile but more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, to a tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night, first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer and the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath 'twas done but - hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold! Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken from thee and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.

A heat wave crashes into my body and I tug at the collar of my winter coat. I could take this thing off and probably still sweat. The memories of his mouth moving against mine and how his hands pressed into my body flood my brain. I lick my lips in anticipation. I crave for him to kiss me again, but... “Are you going to call me after?” A small grin plays on his lips. “You aren’t going to cut me any slack, are you?” It’s like he’s begging me to tease him, and without thought, I slide back to the braver girl at the bar. “Is that a problem?” He shakes his head. “Not from you.”

Every memory came flooding back of all the times she'd woken like this before, safe in Gina's arms. How often had she dreamed herself here over the years, only to find herself alone in an empty bed?

Still, when I read the story, I felt like I'd written half of it myself, and the author guy was responsible for the other half. And when the two halves came together it was like the end of amnesia and all the memories came flooding back. The best stories are like that. They're like spaceships. they take you somewhere far away and you think, oh, what a weird place. But then you think, wait, maybe I've been here before. Maybe I was even born here.

I am now the mother of a four-year-old daughter. Memories of my own childhood flash for a second as I’m combing my daughter’s hair or when I bathe her at night. What’s odder is that memories don’t come when I expect them summoned. Because my parents never read to me, I first felt a deficit of weight instead of being flooded with nostalgic memories when I began reading to my daughter at bedtime. There should be a word for this neurological sensation, this uncanny weightlessness, where a universally beloved ritual tricks your synapses to fire back to the past, but finding no reserve of memories, your mind gropes dumbly, like the feelers of a mollusk groping the empty ocean floor.

This dirty, damp patch of grass—was this really the setting of those years of my childhood, so radiant and winged in my memory? This waste, dreary square with the factory yonder—can this be that quiet corner of earth we called “Home” and which alone amid the waters of destruction out there meant hope to us and salvation from perishing in the flood? Or was it not rather a vision of some far other place than this grey street with its hideous houses that rose up there, over the shell holes, like some wild, sad dream in the grudging intervals between death and death? In my memory was it not far more shining and lovely, more spacious, and abounding with ten thousand things? Is that no longer true, then? Did my blood lie and my memory deceive me?

When I close my eyes to see, to hear, to smell, to touch a country I have known, I feel my body shake and fill with joy as if a beloved person had come near me. A rabbi was once asked the following question: ‘When you say that the Jews should return to Palestine, you mean, surely, the heavenly, the immaterial, the spiritual Palestine, our true homeland?’ The rabbi jabbed his staff into the ground in wrath and shouted, ‘No! I want the Palestine down here, the one you can touch with your hands, with its stones, its thorns and its mud!’ Neither am I nourished by fleshless, abstract memories. If I expected my mind to distill from a turbid host of bodily joys and bitternesses an immaterial, crystal-clear thought, I would die of hunger. When I close my eyes in order to enjoy a country again, my five senses, the five mouth-filled tentacles of my body, pounce upon it and bring it to me. Colors, fruits, women. The smells of orchards, of filthy narrow alleys, of armpits. Endless snows with blue, glittering reflections. Scorching, wavy deserts of sand shimmering under the hot sun. Tears, cries, songs, distant bells of mules, camels or troikas. The acrid, nauseating stench of some Mongolian cities will never leave my nostrils. And I will eternally hold in my hands – eternally, that is, until my hands rot – the melons of Bukhara, the watermelons of the Volga, the cool, dainty hand of a Japanese girl… For a time, in my early youth, I struggled to nourish my famished soul by feeding it with abstract concepts. I said that my body was a slave and that its duty was to gather raw material and bring it to the orchard of the mind to flower and bear fruit and become ideas. The more fleshless, odorless, soundless the world was that filtered into me, the more I felt I was ascending the highest peak of human endeavor. And I rejoiced. And Buddha came to be my greatest god, whom I loved and revered as an example. Deny your five senses. Empty your guts. Love nothing, hate nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing. Breathe out and the world will be extinguished. But one night I had a dream. A hunger, a thirst, the influence of a barbarous race that had not yet become tired of the world had been secretly working within me. My mind pretended to be tired. You felt it had known everything, had become satiated, and was now smiling ironically at the cries of my peasant heart. But my guts – praised be God! – were full of blood and mud and craving. And one night I had a dream. I saw two lips without a face – large, scimitar-shaped woman’s lips. They moved. I heard a voice ask, ‘Who if your God?’ Unhesitatingly I answered, ‘Buddha!’ But the lips moved again and said: ‘No, Epaphus.’ I sprang up out of my sleep. Suddenly a great sense of joy and certainty flooded my heart. What I had been unable to find in the noisy, temptation-filled, confused world of wakefulness I had found now in the primeval, motherly embrace of the night. Since that night I have not strayed. I follow my own path and try to make up for the years of my youth that were lost in the worship of fleshless gods, alien to me and my race. Now I transubstantiate the abstract concepts into flesh and am nourished. I have learned that Epaphus, the god of touch, is my god. All the countries I have known since then I have known with my sense of touch. I feel my memories tingling, not in my head but in my fingertips and my whole skin. And as I bring back Japan to my mind, my hands tremble as if they were touching the breast of a beloved woman.

The memories of the past circle around me—a reminder of a time when my marriage was stronger than circumstance. I pass through the years like snippets of a film reel until I am moments away from the day he told me about Stacey. With the recollection, the pain comes flooding back.

He’d loved Lily so deeply that it changed his biology. Standing here now, it seemed his love for her hadn’t gone away, it had just been vacuum-sealed and stored. Back in her presence, the physical memory of his infatuation was released in a deluge, gasping to life, and adrenaline flooded his bloodstream.

Today, she is standing at the top of a mountain and appreciating the majestic panoramic view of mesmerizing Himalaya. As a kid, she used to look up in the sky and wish for wings to fly up to the mountains. And now after a long wait of many years, she is standing here and living her dream. It’s the moment when she can’t believe her eyes because what she always dreamed of has come alive. She looks with amazement as if she’s witnessing a miracle. It is the moment of her life. She just wants to feel it. There are beautiful clouds below her and there are snow clad mountain peaks emerging from those clouds. The white peaks shining in blue sky among white clouds look like glittering diamonds to her. The view of the large lush green meadow surrounded by mountains under blue sky with a rainbow circling the horizon has put her in a state of tranquility. As the sun starts drowning in the horizon, the sky begins to boast his mystical colours. The beautiful mix of pink, orange and red looks like creating a twilight saga. She opens her both arm and takes a deep breath to entwine with the nature. The glimmering rays of the moon are paying tribute to her by kissing her warm cheeks and her eyes twinkle in bright moon light. She raises her face towards the moon and senses the flood of memories which she wants to unleash. The cool breeze lifts her ruffled hair and blows her skirt up. She closes her eyes and breathes deep as if she wants to let her know that she is finally here and then she opens her eyes and finds herself on the same wheelchair inside a room with an empty wall in front of her eye. Tears rolls down from her eye but these are the tears of Joy because she is living her dreams today. The feelings comes to her mind while waiting for her daughter who is coming back home today after her first expedition of a high range mountain ~ AB

Don’t be like this, okay, Lilith? Not with me.” I don’t know what he means. I shake my head, unable to speak, to say a fucking word, the tears falling faster, hot and wet down my face, buried against his chest. “Don’t try to pretend you’re okay when you’re not,” he says, his words rumbling from his chest, vibrating through me. “Don’t try to be so brave all the time, okay, baby? You don’t have to be. We got…” He stops for a second, and when he starts again, his voice is hoarse, nearly choked, so much emotion that he can barely get the words out. “We got fucked up, okay? We got fucked up, and you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve any of it. And I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you. I’m so sorry you were here, so close to me, and I had no idea…I’m so fucking sorry. But you can fall apart with me, Lilith. Okay? You can fucking fall apart and I’ll put you back together, over and over and over again, scars and all.” He pulls away from me, spins me around, pulls me back to his chest, his arms wrapped around the front of me. “We’ll figure this all out, okay? Everything. When your memories come flooding back, tell me. Talk to me. And as for the other shit, you can meet Finn if you want, or if you don’t, that’s okay, too. And we’ll, ya know, go see a movie and go on a fucking date and do nice, normal things.

The sky hangs like lead over the low shrubbery of the Luisenplatz, the trees are bare, a loose window is clashing in the wind, and amid the frowsy alder bushes in the garden of the square squats the November twilight, dank and cheerless. I peer over into it; and suddenly it is as if I saw it all today for the first time, so unfamiliar that I hardly know it again. This dirty, damp patch of grass—was this really the setting of those years of my childhood, so radiant and winged in my memory? This waste, dreary square with the factory yonder—can this be that quiet corner of earth we called “Home” and which alone amid the waters of destruction out there meant hope to us and salvation from perishing in the flood? Or was it not rather a vision of some far other place than this grey street with its hideous houses that rose up there, over the shell holes, like some wild, sad dream in the grudging intervals between death and death? In my memory was it not far more shining and lovely, more spacious, and abounding with ten thousand things? Is that no longer true, then? Did my blood lie and my memory deceive me? I

Postcolonial Love Poem (excerpt) I’ve been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite, Can stop the bleeding-most people forgot this When the war ended. The war ended Depending on which war you mean: those we started, Before those, millennia ago and onward, Those which started me, which I lost and won- Those ever-blooming wounds. --- There are wildflowers in my desert which take up to twenty years to bloom. The seeds sleep like geodes beneath hot feldspar sand until a flash flood bolts the arroyo, lifting them in its copper current, opens them with memory— they remember what their god whispered into their ribs: Wake up and ache for your life. Where your hands have been are diamonds on my shoulders, down my back, thighs- I am your culebra. I am in the dirt for you. Your hips are quartz-light and dangerous, two rose-horned rams ascending a soft desert wash before the November sky untethers a hundred-year flood- the desert returned suddenly to its ancient sea. --- The rain will eventually come, or not. Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds- The war never ended and somehow begins again.

I think that forgetfulness must be one of the human mind’s primary self-defense mechanisms. Women experience unbearable pain during childbirth and I’m told that afterwards they tend to forget the true depth of their suffering. If women had complete memories of their birthing ordeals, they might never be willing to become pregnant again and our species would become extinct. Without consciously trying I somehow forgot the true magnitude of my daily pain and suffering. A few miles into my next run my amnesia dissipates and the horror of past runs comes flooding back into my mind. It is just too painful to go on. I make a decision. I will quit after this one last run. Seconds after crossing the finish line I am already forgetting, “That wasn’t so bad.” Maybe the trainees who quit, the ones who nearly went insane, the ones who broke down in tears, maybe those guys couldn’t forget.

Do you trust me, Fiske?” “I’m here, aren’t I?” The memory of his lips on mine came flooding back. His hands finding me in the dark, pulling me across the stone. I fisted my hands, resisting the urge to touch him. “And if the Aska do join the Riki and together we defeat the Herja? What then?” He reached into the fire with his axe, knocking a log closer to the flames. “Then things change.” “What things?” He leaned back against the tree, his eyes running over my face, and his voice softened. “Everything.

What’s odder is that memories don’t come when I expect them summoned. Because my parents never read to me, I first felt a deficit of weight instead of being flooded with nostalgic memories when I began reading to my daughter at bedtime. There should be a word for this neurological sensation, this uncanny weightlessness, where a universally beloved ritual tricks your synapses to fire back to the past, but finding no reserve of memories, your mind gropes dumbly, like the feelers of a mollusk groping the empty ocean floor.

Touch had always saved them in the past. No matter the anger or hurt, no matter the depth of the aloneness, a touch, even a light and passing touch, reminded them of their long togetherness. A palm on a neck: it all flooded back. A head leaned upon a shoulder: the chemicals surged, the memory of love. At times, it was almost impossible to cross the distance between their bodies, to reach out. At times, it was impossible. Each new the feeling so well, in the silence of a darkened bedroom, looking at the same ceiling: If I could open my fingers, my heart's fingers could open.

flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else. Like everything else.” He took the controls back, then reached up and rubbed his left shoulder. “Aches and pains—must be getting old.” Brian let go of the controls and moved his feet away from the pedals as the pilot put his hands on the wheel. “Thank you . . .” But the pilot had put his headset back on and the gratitude was lost in the engine noise and things went back to Brian looking out the window at the ocean of trees and lakes. The burning eyes did not come back, but memories did, came flooding in. The words. Always the words. Divorce.

March 28, 2012 The dreams won’t subside. I don’t just have them at night anymore but during the day as well. Erotic flashes of her lips, her breasts, her thighs. My imagination does not rest. I yearn to know what she feels like, what she tastes like. My dreams make me long for more. This woman is a virus. Every cell in my body has been infected by her. I try to remain civil, normal when I’m in her presence but she’ll lick her lips or play with the top of her collar and suddenly memories of my dreams will come flooding back. This woman is a virus that has dominated every part of my being. She attacks my lungs, squeezing the breath out of me until I’m hopelessly gasping for air. This isn’t a want. This isn’t a need. This is an ache. I ache with wanting. I ache with need. I ache until the pain finally leaves me feeling numb. I long for that numbness. It’s the only time I feel like…I don’t feel. I try to run away, to keep my distance but this woman is a virus. She’s in my blood. Her smile stops my feet from moving. The only time she allows me to breathe freely is when I inhale her perfume. I feel myself losing control. These dreams, this ache is slowly driving me insane. This woman is a virus and she’s eating me alive.

A memory long forgotten swept over him and he was a child four years of age standing in the front seat of the 1936 Studebaker his father drove all through the war and his mother was sitting beside him in her best dress and coat and she had wet her handkerchief with her tongue and wiped his chin and his mouth and adjusted his cap while his father backed up the car and the wartime plywood house in which they lived receded before them. It was the smell of her perfume on that day that had flooded his nostrils. The muskrats would repair the roof faultlessly. But they never built another house in the millpond. Clouds

Memory is choice. You said that once, with your back to me, the way a god would say it. But if you were a god you would see them. You would look down at this grove of pines, the fresh tips flared lucent at each treetop, tender-damp in their late autumn flush. You would look past the branches, past the rusted light splintered through the brambles, the needles falling, one by one, as you your god eyes on them. You’d trace the needles as they hurled themselves pst the lowest, bough, toward the cooling forest floor, to land on the two boys lying side by side, the blood already dry on their cheeks [...] Ma. You told me once that memory is a choice. But if you were a god , you’d know it’s a flood

Conceivably, though, the sea might have filtered into her body over the years in tiny fragments like the parts of a picture puzzle which, while she'd never identified the whole, had pieced themselves together as the sea in all its sparkling radiance. An internal sea. Untouched by anyone... Having drunk too much, the mother was beginning to drift off with the sound of the children's high-pitched voices in her ears. Fragments of the sea... Could she trace the matrix into which she'd fitted them all the way back to the flood of light she'd experienced at the moment of birth? The light was pain. She didn't actually remember that time, of course. She'd thought she was reminded of it when she heard the first cries of her own children: yes, she'd thought then, it was painful and dazzling, and I couldn't help crying. With every cry I was longing to accustom myself to the flood of light. But before my body had time to adjust, the light had ceased to exist as light. Perhaps what I was seeing was the brightness of the internal sea? My mother's sea. There were other memories. The tale of the Little Mermaid she'd come across in a foreign picture book. Though it would never have occurred to her to see herself in the person of the lovely little princess, she'd been haunted by the idea that perhaps she had been present herself, somewhere in the deeps where the princess lived. She sensed the sea's wan bluish gleam in the Little Mermaid's sobs.

I think back to the last time I saw her. It had been about two weeks ago, the day before she’d left for New York. She’s a consultant in the UK division of a huge American consultancy firm, Finchlakers, and often goes to the US on business. That evening, we’d gone to the cinema together and then on for a drink. Maybe that was when she’d asked me to get something for Susie. I rack my brains, trying to remember, trying to guess what we might have decided to buy. It could be anything – perfume, jewellery, a book – but nothing rings a bell. Had I forgotten? Memories of Mum, uncomfortable ones, flood my mind and I push them away quickly. It isn’t the same, I tell myself fiercely, I am not the same. By tomorrow, I’ll have remembered.

Only two weeks since he had left, and it was already happening. Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories. Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital, suddenly, that she know. Laila closed her eyes. Concentrated. With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion - like the phantom pain of an amputee. Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grown woman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set, something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath her feet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, would set off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would all come rushing back. The spontaneity of it. Their astonishing imprudence. Their clumsiness. The pain of the act, the pleasure of it, the sadness of it. The heat of their entangled bodies. It would flood her, steal her breath. But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave her deflated, feeling nothing but a vague restlessness.

It wasn't tuna ventresca that drew diners to this community over others, nor was it heritage beef. It was the final bottle of a 1985 Cannonau, salt-crusted from its time on the Sardinian coast. Each diner had barely a swallow. My employer bid us not to swallow, not yet, but hold the wine at the back of the throat till it stung and warmed to the temperature of blood and spit, till we wrung from it the terroir of fields cracked by quake and shadowed by smog; only then, swallowing, choking, grateful, did we appreciate the fullness of its flavor. His face was ferocious and sublime in this moment, cracked open; I saw it briefly behind the mask. He was a man who knew the gradations of pleasure because he knew, like me, the calculus of its loss. To me that wine was fig and plum; volcanic soil; wheat fields shading to salt stone; sun; leather, well-baked; and finally, most lingering, strawberry. Psychosomatic, I'm sure, but what flavor isn't? I raised my glass to the memory of my drunk in the British market. I imagined him sat across the table, calmed at last, sane among the sane. He would have tasted in that wine the starch of a laundered sheet, perhaps, or the clean smooth shot of his dignity. My employer decanted these deepest longings, mysterious to each diner until it flooded the palate: a lost child's yeasty scalp, the morning breath of a lover, huckleberries, onion soup, the spice of a redwood forest gone up in smoke. It is easy, all these years later, to dismiss that country's purpose as decadent, gluttonous. Selfish. It was those things. But it was, also, this connoisseurship of loss.

When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla. They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement. Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.

I lie on the seashore, the sparkling flood blue-shimmering in my dreamy eyes; light breezes flutter in the distance; the thud of the waves, charging and breaking over in foam, beats thrillingly and drowsily upon the shore—or upon the ear? I cannot tell. The far and the near become blurred into one; outside and inside merge into one another. Nearer and nearer, friendlier, like a homecoming, sounds the thud of the waves; now, like a thundering pulse, they beat in my head, now they beat over my soul, wrapping it round, consuming it, while at the same time my soul floats out of me as a blue waste of waters. Outside and inside are one. The whole symphony of sensations fades away into one tone, all senses become one sense, which is one with feeling; the world expires in the soul and the soul dissolves in the world. Our little life is rounded by a great sleep. Sleep our cradle, sleep our grave, sleep our home, from which we go forth in the morning, returning again at evening; our life a short pilgrimage, the interval between emergence from original oneness and sinking back into it! Blue shimmers the infinite sea, where the jelly-fish dreams of that primeval existence to which our thoughts still filter down through aeons of memory. For every experience entails a change and a guarantee of life’s unity. At that moment when they are no longer blended together, when the experient lifts his head, still blind and dripping, from immersion in the stream of experience, from flowing away with the thing experienced; when man, amazed and estranged, detaches the change from himself and holds it before him as something alien—at that moment of estrangement the two sides of the experience are substantialized into subject and object, and at that moment consciousness is born.33

You think this is the end?” He looked at his hands. “The end of what?” “The end of everything. The Riki. The Aska.” The words hung in the air over us, burning in the fire. “Is that what you think?” “No. I think you’ll convince them.” The stillness of the night turned to something fragile, threatening to break. Because I wasn’t sure. “How do you know?” He smiled at the corner of his mouth. “Because you have fire in your blood.” It was what Inge said about me the night I watched them from the loft and he told Halvard I was dangerous. “Do you trust me, Fiske?” “I’m here, aren’t I?” The memory of his lips on mine came flooding back. His hands finding me in the dark, pulling me across the stone. I fisted my hands, resisting the urge to touch him. “And if the Aska do join the Riki and together we defeat the Herja? What then?” He reached into the fire with his axe, knocking a log closer to the flames. “Then things change.” “What things?” He leaned back against the tree, his eyes running over my face, and his voice softened. “Everything.

Hesitantly, he brushed back a few errant strands of her hair, his hand resting along the side of her face. "You have no idea how much I wish I could change thing." "I think I might," she whispered. His gaze dropped to her lips, causing her heart to race even faster. When he lowered his head, she held her breath, the memories of their first and only kiss flooding her, a kiss that seemed like it was a lifetime ago. She wanted to experience that again, to feel his lips on hers. She held perfectly still as he closed the distance between them, her breath catching. When his lips pressed against hers, his touch was soft, exquisite and tender, stirring a fire within her that she had never felt before. She pressed herself closer to him as he worked a hand into her hair. She wanted more of him. More of the precious connection between them that made her blood heat even as it filled her with an indescribable rightness. But almost as soon as their exploration of one another had begun, he pulled away, his breathing ragged and his expression pained. "I can't," he softly said, his voice coming out strangled. "I'm sorry. I just... I can't do this.

right now my mind is full of images, an overwhelming flood of memories and ideas—you have any idea how many memories are buried in the mind? Fishing for bluegill on Lake Argyle with my father, the hook caught in his thumb, forcing it through the other side and cutting it off with wirecutters, the severed barb flying dangerously into the air spinning its cut facet gleaming in the sun and I jerking back for fear it would plunge into my eye, squinting protectively, opening my eyes again it is mud, all mud, a universe of mud and the mortar shell has just taken flight, my fingers jammed into my ears, the smell of the explosion penetrating my sinuses making them clench up and bleed, the shell exploding in the trees, a puff of white smoke but the trees are still there and the gunfire still raining down like hailstones on the cellar door on the day that the tornado wrecked our farmhouse and we packed into my aunt’s fruit cellar and I looked up at the stacked mason jars of rhubarb and tomatoes and wondered what would happen to us when the glass shattered and flew through the air like the horizontal sleet of Soldier Field on the day that I caught five for eighty-seven yards and put such a hit on Cornelius Hayes that he took five minutes to get up. God, I can see my entire life!

Ordinarily, when he thought back upon those days, let alone upon his student years and the Bamboo Grove, it had always been as if he were gazing from a cool, dull room out into broad, brightly sunlit landscapes, into the irrevocable past, the paradise of memory. Such recollections had always been, even when they were free of sadness, a vision of things remote and different, separated from the prosaic present by a mysterious festiveness. But now, on this bright and cheerful September afternoon, with the strong greens and browns all around him and the ethereal, gently misted tones of blues verging into violet in the distance, as he trudged along at an easy pace, with frequent pauses to look about him, that walking tour of so long ago did not seem a distant paradise cut off from a resigned present. rather his present journey was the same as that of the past, the present Joseph Knecht was close as a brother to the Knecht of those days. Everything was new again, mysterious, promising; all that had been could recur, and many new things as well. It was long, long since he had looked out upon the day and the world and seen them as so unburdened, so beautiful and innocent. The happiness of freedom, of commanding his own destiny, flooded through him like a strong drink. How long it was since he had last had this feeling, last entertained this lovely and rapturous illusion.

If you have ever been in a relationship with, or are experiencing narcissistic abuse, then you probably know how hard it is to leave. You know what you need to do, you think about the ways you can escape, and you gain the courage to do it, but then, you don’t. You don’t because something brings you back in. You sit there and think of all the good memories, then think about what would happen after you actually left, then you think about all the things that haven’t happened yet, or maybe if you stayed things would get better due to whatever excuse you come up with. This is another form of fear. Your mind has you trapped as a result of the abuse to the point where, when you do decide to or try to leave, you feel a flood of panic. The fear is something many of us can’t seem to overcome, so we stay in the relationship hoping that things will get better, or that things will be okay. But it never does, so you start from the beginning, getting ready to leave again. It’s a vicious cycle that no one should have to go through. If you find yourself sitting there most of the time asking yourself, “should I stay, should I go,” then you most likely already know the answer to this, and should go. Things don’t get better; they only repeat themselves. The narcissist you are involved with will always make promises they can’t keep, and they will always build you up for the main purpose of thrashing you down.

It was because I always did everything that was asked of me without a word of complaint. It was because I was so convenient in that sense that he didn’t bother to do anything about someone else pushing their work onto me. (...) After that incident, I started to realize there were two kinds of people: those who knew how the world worked and pushed everything they didn’t want to do on others and those who happily accepted being on the receiving end of the former’s actions. When I entered 6th grade—no, when I grew old enough to understand my surroundings, I started to realize that I was one of the latter. As I did, all my memories started to flood back, one-by-one. That time, that time, and that time too… so that’s what was happening. (...) It was because I never talked back. That in itself was fine, really. None of the things I did were unmanageable. It wasn’t like I considered me doing those kinds of stuff some sort of loss, and I didn’t hate them for constantly taking it easy. It’s just that imagining myself being used as a convenient tool made me sad. I thought back. At that time, my discovery made me so sad, and it was getting too painful to keep silent about it, so I told my older sister. Even if you think that fellow human beings should help each other, others won’t necessarily think of you as being worth it. It’s not like I wanted anyone to appreciate me. I just never imagined that people thought of me as such an idiot. I won’t stay after school anymore. As long as I’m around others, they’ll ask me to do something. They probably think I’m an idiot because I always did what they asked without resisting. I don’t care about what they think. I just hate being used. Of course, if I have to do it I will. I won’t complain at all. But, if it’s not necessary… If it turns out it’s someone else’s responsibility… If I don’t have to do it, I won’t. I absolutely won’t.

The village square teemed with life, swirling with vibrant colors and boisterous chatter. The entire village had gathered, celebrating the return of their ancestral spirit. Laughter and music filled the air, carrying with it an energy that made Kitsune smile. Paper lanterns of all colors floated lazily above, their delicate glow reflecting on the smiling faces below. Cherry blossoms caught in the playful breeze, their sweet, earthy scent settling over the scene. At the center, villagers danced with unbridled joy, the rhythm of the taiko drums and the melody of flutes guiding their steps. To the side, a large table groaned under the weight of a feast. Sticky rice balls, steamed dumplings, seaweed soup, sushi, and more filled the air with a mouthwatering aroma. As she approached the table, she was greeted warmly by the villagers, who offered her food, their smiles genuine and welcoming. She filled a plate and sat at a table with Goro and Sota, overlooking the celebration. The event brought back a flood of memories of a similar celebration from her childhood—a time when everything was much simpler and she could easily answer the question who are you? The memory filled her heart with a sweet sadness, a reminder of what she lost and what had carved the road to where she was now. Her gaze fell on the dancing villagers, but she wasn’t watching them. Not really. Her attention was fully embedded in her heart ache, longing for the past, for the life that was so cruelly ripped away from her. “I think... I think I might know how to answer your question,” she finally said, her voice soft and steady, barely audible over the cacophony of festivity around them. “Oh?” Goro responded, his face alight with intrigue. “I would have to tell you my story.” Kitsune’s eyes reflected the somber clouds of her past. Goro swallowed his bite of food before nodding. “Let us retire to the dojo, and you can tell me.” They retreated from the bustling square, leaving behind the chaos of the celebration. The sounds of laughter and chatter and drums carried away by distance. The dojo, with its bamboo and sturdy jungle planks, was bathed in the soft luminescence of the moonlight, the surface of its wooden architecture glistening faintly under the glow. They stepped into the silent tranquility of the building, and Kitsune made her way to the center, the smooth, cool touch of the polished wooden floor beneath her providing a sense of peace. Assuming the lotus position, she calmed herself, ready to speak of memories she hadn’t confronted in a long time. Not in any meaningful way at least. Across from her, Goro settled, his gaze intense yet patient, encouraging her with a gentle smile like he somehow already understood her story was hard to verbalize.

Memories flooded back for me as I mourned increasing losses.

She sat up again, horror filling her as the memory came flooding back. "Oh, no," she said out loud, quite distinctly. And out of the darkness his voice, the low, cool drawl with the faint trace of a lilt, said, "Oh, yes." Emma slid her legs around, pulling her feet on the thick French carpet. Her dress was tumbling down around her shoulders, and she knew whom to thank for that service. "You," she said, not bothering to disguise the horror in her voice. "Me," he agreed. "Come to your rescue once more, my sweet.

When Loftus was just fourteen years old, her mother drowned in a swimming pool. On her forty-fourth birthday, Loftus attended a family gathering at which an uncle informed her that she had been the one to discover her mother’s dead body. Although she had previously remembered little about her mother’s death, suddenly memories of the incident came flooding back. A few days later, Loftus’s brother called her and told her that their uncle had made a mistake—it had actually been an aunt that had found their mother. The memories that had appeared so clear and vivid for the past few days were entirely false.

He laughed awkwardly and cleared his throat. 'Rain is better than hail,' he joked. I smiled at him shyly as the memory of our drive in the midst of a hailstorm on Inis Mor flooded back to me. 'It was a beautiful sight though,' I commented quietly, 'so not altogether unwelcome.' Grady looked at me with his piercing sapphire eyes and replied with emotion, 'it was not as beautiful as you are – and you are most welcome.' I found myself blushing under his gaze and felt that if I tried to speak, I would be utterly tongue-tied. As we neared the entrance to the castle, Grady said, 'thank you for coming, Ellen; I must confess that I had my doubts…

Many years have passed since my term of service in Ethiopia. Despite this, memories keep flooding back.” (In prologue)

We’d known each other over a very short period of time. He left France in June of 1964, and I’m writing this in April 1992. I never received word from him and I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. The memory of him had remained dormant, but now it has suddenly come flooding back this early spring of 1992. Is it because I came across the picture of my girlfriend and me, on the back of which a blue stamp says Photo by Jansen. All rights reserved? Or for the simple reason that every spring looks the same? Today the air was light, the buds had burst on the trees in the gardens of the Observatoire, and the month of April 1992 merged by an effect of superimposition with the month of April 1964.

There would come a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion - like the phantom pain of an amputee. Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grown woman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set, something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath her feet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, would set off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would all come rushing back. ... It would flood her, steal her breath. But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave her deflated, feeling nothing but a vague restlessness.

Anya took a deep breath, trying to steady the rapid beating of her heart. She couldn’t do this right now. She couldn’t face the memories as they flooded up into her. Anya worked so hard to keep it all dammed back, this was not the time for the dam to crack. She had people to help, she had a battle to fight just above. But her mind did not listen. While the ship rocked, Anya’s head flooded with the things she did not want to remember ever again.

Mrs Noah: Taken After The Flood I can't sit still these days. The ocean is only memory, and my memory as fluttery as a lost dove. Now the real sea beats inside me, here, where I'd press fur and feathers if I could. I'm middle aged and plump. Back on dry land I shouldn't think these things: big paws which idly turn to bat the air my face by his ribs and the purr which ripples through the boards of the afterdeck, the roar - even at a distance - ringing in my bones, the rough tongue, the claws, the little bites, the crude taste of his mane. If you touched my lips with salt water I would tell you such words, words to crack the sky and launch the ark again.

She remembers how the Mississippi River was straightened to make room for houses, and for livable conditions, and better crops, and a better life. From time to time, the river floods over these places. She stops to examine one word: flooding. That is what is happening when the water comes crashing down the red Mississippi clay, filling up barren places, washing away the cracks. "It is remembering," she writes, "remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was." It was trying to find its way home.

Caudell hadn't touched a firearm since he left the army. His hands, he discovered, still knew what to do. The smell of oil and metal and powder that came from the rifle, the sensuously mechanical glide of the charging handle as he pushed it back to expose the open chamber, made him see the army's old Virginia campground almost as vividly as he did the courthouse where he stood. By the murmurs that rose from his comrades, they also had memories flooding back.

[...] But You heal the hurt but You can’t touch the memory of it hurting. I feel like every time I move, it’ll all come flooding back.” “Well excuse me for not bloody tucking you in and giving you a sweet,” God said disgustedly [...].

The fear went away, and the memory of beauty flooded back.

As her breath caught in her throat, Vanessa grabbed the first diversion she spotted - a glossy visitor's guide to the city - and sat down, determined not to let her thoughts travel back in time. But as she flipped through the pages without seeing them, her determination failed, and a flood of memories poured over her. Tears began slipping down her cheeks, one by one, until she started sobbing, and the guide slipped to the floor.

Seeing the photos in Pa’s diary had bought the memories of that dark pit of fear flooding back. It was like taking the lid off a bottle of air from Chernobyl. Poisonous, evil, and extremely dangerous. Since

God is not a robot. He isn’t a comptroller of an accounting company trying to make things add up or work out. He is a being full of deep emotion, longing, and memories of what it used to be like. The incarnation therefore isn’t about an equation but about remembering what home used to be like and making a plan to get back there. Consider this reboot of the Genesis creation account. It may help you see God’s emotion a little better. First off, nothing … but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function—just darkness … total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play. Day one: Then God’s voice booms out, “Lights!” and, from nowhere, light floods the skies and “night” is swept off the scene. God gives it the big thumbs up, calls it “day”. Day two: God says, “I want a dome—call it ‘sky’—right there between the waters above and below.” And it happens. Day three: God says, “Too much water! We need something to walk on, a huge lump of it—call it ‘land’. Let the ‘sea’ lick its edges.” God smiles, says, “Now we’ve got us some definition. But it’s too plain! It needs colour! Vegetation! Loads of it. A million shades. Now!” And the earth goes wild with trees, bushes, plants, flowers and fungi. “Now give it a growth permit.” Seeds appear in every one. “Yesss!” says God. Day four: “We need a schedule: let’s have a ‘sun’ for the day, a ‘moon’ for the night; I want ‘seasons’, ‘years’; and give us ‘stars’, masses of stars—think of a number, add a trillion, then times it by the number of trees and we’re getting there: we’re talking huge! Day five: “OK, animals: amoeba, crustaceans, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals … I want the whole caboodle teeming with a million varieties of each—and let’s have some fun with the shapes, sizes, colours, textures!” God tells them all, “You’ve got a growth permit—use it!” He sits back and smiles, says, “Result!” Day six: Then God says, “Let’s make people—like us, but human, with flesh and blood, skin and bone. Give them the job of caretakers of the vegetation, game wardens of all the animals.” So God makes people, like him, but human. He makes male and female.… He smiles at them and gives them their job description: “Make babies! Be parents, grandparents, great-grandparents—fill the earth with your families and run the planet well. You’ve got all the plants to eat from, so have all the animals—plenty for all. Enjoy.” God looks at everything he’s made, and says, “Fantastic. I love it!” Day seven: Job done—the cosmos and the earth complete. God takes a bit of well-earned R&R and just enjoys. He makes an announcement: “Let’s keep this day of the week special, a day off—battery-recharge day: Rest Day.”2 I’m not normally a paraphrase guy, but we always read the creation story like a textbook. I love this rendition because it captures the enthusiastic emotion that God felt about everything He created, especially humans. He loved it all. He loved us. Most of all, He loved the way things were.

Shea! The call was loud, a flood of fear and confusion, an impression of strangling, of darkness and pain. I’m here, Jacques. She sent her answer back so easily it startled her. To reassure him, she tried to fill her mind with every beautiful thing she saw. Come back to me. I need you. She smiled at the demand in his voice; her heart somersaulted at the raw truth in his voice. He never tried to hide anything from her, not even his elemental fear of her leaving him to face the darkness alone. Spoiled brat. She sent it tenderly. There’s no need to sound like the lord of the manor. I’ll be right in. There was no reasonable explanation for the joy flooding her at the touch of his mind lingering possessively in hers. She shied away from looking at that one too closely, too. Just come to me. He was more relaxed now, beating back his fear of isolation. I do not want to wake alone. I do need an occasional break. How was I supposed to know you would wake at this precise moment? She was teasing him. Warmth curled in the pit of his stomach. He had no memory of such a thing before Shea. There was no life before Shea. There had been only ugliness. His world had been torment and hell. He found himself smiling. Of course you should know when I wake. It is your duty. I should have known you would think that way.

It is not as cruel as it appears, Arisha.” “But all animals are the sacred creatures of Mother Earth,” she repeated back to him. His teaching flooded her memory. He had always stressed the holiness of animal life, even plants and insects. This seemed to be a violation of that sacred truth. “Yes, that is true. But some creatures are more sacred than others. Do you remember how we have talked about the nature of evil men?” “Yes.” She was realizing that not all of life was good and that some people wished to hurt others. “Well, many human beings are bad to Mother Earth. They cut down trees, kill and eat other animals and spoil the land. This is the price we must pay to appease the goddess Gaia. In a way it is really—justice.

And when I think back, to the Omnipresent Ifs. My face cracks a smile, While my eyes quickly lift. And when I look up, At the moon every night. Memories quickly flood in, From a past life so bright.

To me, love looks like golden light flooding through curtains as the sun peeks over the horizon to paint the sky with watercolors. It looks like the distorted version of a city that you know like the back of your hand through a window blurred with rain. It looks like receipts and clothing tags marking pages and passages that remind you of your memories with them in one of your favourite books.

And when I think back, To the Omnipresent Ifs. My face cracks a smile, While my eyes quickly lift. And when I look up, At the moon every night. Memories swiftly flood in, From a past life so bright.

I’d waited for it . . . for the moment Declan put it together. Because he would eventually put it together. And with his frustration and Aurora’s inability to speak or look at me when we’d first gotten back to the house, I’d put money on it happening sooner rather than later. But as the night had dragged on, Dec had remained oblivious as the four of us hung out and I’d acted as though I weren’t being assaulted by memories of a night with his girl. His frustration eventually cooled and Aurora loosened up, and soon they were curled up with each other while I forced myself not to pull her away from Dec and claim that she should have been mine. Should have. Because I’d had her first and let her go. Something I’d regretted every day since. Every time those dark blue eyes of hers found mine, my mind and body went wild as I fought to control that same mixture of emotions that was flooding me now, and just savored the fact that she was real and she was here. I had convinced myself that I would never see her again . . . and now I would give anything to just be able to touch her again. Instead

Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan is a producer, director, and actor in Bollywood films. A member of the successful Roshan film family, Mr. Roshan opened his own production company in 1982 and has been producing Hindi movies ever since. His film Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai won nine Filmfare awards, including those for best movie and best director. When I remember Diana and her activities in the last years of her life, I strongly feel that God sends some special people into this world to perform some special duties. Diana was one of these special people. Advancing on this godly path of love and goodness, Diana was blossoming like a flower, and with her captivating fragrance she started infusing new life in our dangerously sick garden--which was apparently at the brink of a precipice. The irony is that the cruel winds of autumn ruthlessly blew away this rare flower and deprived the world of its soothing fragrance. Diana, Princess of Wales, is no longer present in this world, but Diana, the queen of millions of hearts, is immortal and will live forever. My heart breaks when I think of her last journey, her funeral, which was brilliantly covered all over the world. One could see the whole of England in tears, and the eyes of all the television viewers were also flooded. Thousands of men, women, and children had lined up along the entire route from the palace to the church where the services were held. All the fresh flowers available in the United Kingdom were there on the passage. All eyes were tearful, and one could clearly hear the sobs of people. There were heartrending scenes of people paying tribute to their departed darling. Last, I would like to write here a translation in English of a poem written in Urdu. We hope you will come back…dear friend But why this pervading sadness…dear friend The familiar flavor in the atmosphere is singing… You are somewhere around…dear friend Please come back, Diana; this sinking world desperately needs a savior.

And then a numbness overtakes you and you are unsure what is real and what is not anymore. You try to focus on the day to day but this unrealistic aura hangs over you. You wonder perhaps if all emotions have been stripped away. Whether you will ever feel again. And then the memories come flooding back and you know that you are not dead inside. The walls you have built to protect yourself gradually start to come down. You take off the mask that you have been hiding behind because it’s ok to cry.

Last night’s memories flooded over him like a tsunami. He’d been tipsy, but not drunk. He remembered it all, every single mind-blowing-intensely-erotic-second of it. Well if he wasn’t sure, the crusty substance on his back was a clear indication. Asshole. Could’ve got a rag. Michaels

sometimes think that if you recall a situation in which you were really depressed, you feel all the sorrow flooding back when you think about it. And if you recall a situation in which you were really happy, the happiness comes back to you. But if your memory of a situation fills you with anxiety, the feelings you had don’t come back, no matter what. It’s as if your brain simply goes on strike. It’s not going to go back there. You can only remember what it was like. You can’t experience how it felt.” Depressed? Hjalmar thinks. Sorrow? Happiness?

When I received this Andalusian letter I collapsed: Tehran came flooding back to me, the memories of Damascus too, Paris, Vienna, suddenly tinted, the way a simple ray of light is enough to give its tonality to the immense sky of evening, sadness and bitterness. Dr.

It wasn't like that at all, especially not with you. There was no one else”—she hisses when the meat shifts on her knuckle—“like you. No one that mattered.” Memories of our conversations flood my mind. Tell me what time you plan to take a shower, King. What time I shower? Yes, silly, I want to know we’re taking one together. You want to take a shower with me, Ven? I want to do everything with you. All your firsts. “That mattered,” I repeat. “Just a bunch of sad blokes getting fucked outta paychecks, eh?” “I mean it, Shane.” She says my name so direct—so full of purpose—it nearly crumbles my tough exterior. She swallows, blinking those heart-stopping eyes back up to mine. “It was only ever you.” It's only ever you.

I felt Reshaye shift through my thoughts, as if unnerved. {It has been many days,} it whispered, {since I have seen this place.} A Syrizen stood at the center of the gates. She was wearing a red sash, wrapped around her waist and pinned to her shoulders so it flowed down her back. She was older than most Syrizen, her hair grey-streaked and bound tightly. “Come,” she said. “The king wishes to see you.” The king? “The king?” Sammerin said. Even he looked unnerved, eyes slightly wide as he stared at the building before us. Max looked as if he wasn’t even breathing. “Why are we here?” he said again. “The king will explain everything,” the Syrizen said, lightly. “Come.” “I’m not going in there.” Max turned his gaze to me, his jaw set and eyes bright with fury, and all at once, the memories flooded over me. Max’s memories. Memories of dark-haired siblings running to meet him here, at these gates. Memories of his father’s grin and his mother’s embrace. Memories of Reshaye’s rage, and their corpses. All here, in this house. We were in Korvius. Max’s childhood home.

Now, I imagine how the place must look to someone like Ms. Judy, the landscape barren and bleak after sixty-five summers without her, trees stunted in growth due to the numerous hurricanes, floods, droughts, and tornadoes over the years. As a result, the overhead limbs now bear the shape of the wind, the bank eroded and boggy, with multiple man-made items caught in the snags along the shore—fishing line, a board or two from an old dock, a piece of rope, an empty beer bottle. But there’s also something serene about it all, to the fingers of fog sneaking through the leafy foliage, hovering like damp breath; the sweet and spicy smell of milkweed and traces of pollen coating the calm surface, each breath of wind shedding yellow dust. We tie off along a clump of cypress knees, our lines swishing over the rusty-brown surface. Ms. Judy doesn’t even ask for help, flicking her wrist back and aiming for a narrow spot in between two fallen limbs, the movement like muscle-memory after all this time.

It had been a while since Mina had been properly hugged. Not since her sister. Mina sat at the kitchen table as memories flooded back.

Today, TV weather presenters have morphed into climate and weather presenters, blaming a “broken climate” for many of the severe weather events that they cover. Indeed, it has become de rigueur for the media, politicians, and even some scientists to implicate human influences as the cause of heat waves, droughts, floods, storms, and whatever else the public fears. It’s a pretty easy sell: the on-the-scene reporting is powerful—and often moving—and our poor memories of past events can make “unprecedented” quite convincing. But the science tells a different story. Observations extending back over a century indicate that most types of extreme weather events don’t show any significant change—and some such events have actually become less common or severe—even as human influences on the climate grow. In general, there are high levels of uncertainty involved in detecting trends in extreme weather. Here are some (perhaps surprising) summary statements from the IPCC’s AR5 WGI report, indicating what we know (or don’t know) about a few such trends: •​“. . . low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”1 •​“. . . low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century . . .”2 •​“. . . low confidence in trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms . . .”3 •​“. . . confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones [storms] since 1900 is low.”4

laughed. “Totally.” Memories came back to me in a flood, and I turned to Collette. “He’s also a huge Harry Potter fan—” “All the best people are,” she shot back with a laugh.

When Kerry had saluted, the bitter memories had rushed in: Once again it was April 1971, and Kerry was testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. All the newspaper and television reporting about the Vietnam War flooded back too, coverage that many Vietnam veterans believe is the longest-running hoax ever perpetrated on the American public. And here was the man they believed responsible. Many in the military community suddenly realized John Kerry could be elected commander in chief.

Observe your wandering mind It is likely, sooner or later, that we learn that the mind has a life of its own. A very active, energetic, inquisitive, and sometimes obsessed life. And so even with the best intentions to hold our focus on the breath and keep it breath by breath, after a while it's hard not to notice the purpose may get sidetracked, stolen, distracted, and we get involved in some other mind operation. The many infinite scenarios and storylines played out in the mind: perhaps it's dreaming and thinking about future events, or planning or fantasizing about some possibility. Or perhaps it's about recollecting past events and getting carried away by past memories and emotions. Or perhaps it's talking about this or that with ourselves, or with someone else for that matter, and objecting to this or that. It could be practically anything, and this very air will quickly disappear from our consciousness in the process of the breath that we were paying attention to, even though it is always flowing in and out of the body, of course. Note when your mind has wandered And although we made the commitment to just be with a healthy sense. But in any moment you realize the focus is no longer with the air, or on the breath, not making that into a question, or blaming yourself for this lack in concentration in any way. Clearly, and freely and affectionately remember what is in your mind at this moment. If the breath in the field of consciousness is no longer center stage, what is it? In the note, see, hear, smell what's in your head. Clearly, and freely and affectionately mention what is in your mind at this moment. If the breath in the field of consciousness is no longer center stage, what is it? Allow yourself to be aware of the breath again And then encouraging the air to be part of it right now, because it's here right now and just allowing wherever the consciousness is pushed to be, however it is, and returning the primacy of concentration once more to the heart, to the nostrils, to the flood of breath stimuli in the body, right now. So when you realize that the mind has slipped or diverted, it is already back to understanding purpose. That is consciousness, which is life itself. They just pick up on what the wind is like at this moment. Ride the waves of the breath So focusing, if you will, the concentration on the body, and then as well you can maintain the focus on the breath by floating on the waves of the air sensations, and when you know that the mind has wandered and is no longer breathing again and again, softly, compassionately only realizing what the mind is up to now. Allowing it to be just as it is, and just in reconnecting with the spirit that is also already here, once again presenting it as the center stage in the area of consciousness and thus exercising with the consistency of open and affectionate devotion to the unfolding of your life as it unfolds right here, breath by breath and moment by moment.

You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, what valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place.

Ayesha’s memories of Syria are fractured. She relives a feeling of constant exhaustion, of feeling unsafe, and then those moments before the injury. Her thoughts shift to the aftermath, the vision of displaced persons flooding over Turkey’s border and back into Syria, even while the conflict peaked. But even after endless painful and traumatic surgeries, Ayesha sits in bed with her schoolbooks and shrugs. “Never give in, never give up,” she stresses, scrolling through her toddler photographs — evidence of the life “before.” “Even when you think hope is lost, it will be back in you.” Nothing is permanent, I think to myself. We may not be able to alter the experience of what has happened to us, but sunshine eventually casts aside even the gloomiest days. If we are willing to ride it out, the prospect of betterment always returns.

When you have everything under control except your own emotions...Silently, you shudder with fury at your helplessness about it. ..As you fight to hold back the flood of tormenting memories.,...seek refuge in the art for opening your eyes to dream again..for longing to live a life that remains unlived.

Sitting in your favorite position and closing your eyes, you tiptoe over the threshold of experience and into the mystery. You drop into the heart of the universe. You’re there. The cascade of SONDANoBe floods your brain. You’re hooked, drawn up into the light. When you emerge from meditation, you’re more compassionate, emotionally balanced, mentally coherent, effective, kind, creative, healthy, and productive. The effects ripple through the whole community around you. At the center of that circle is a great-feeling you. The Gregs of this world go for heroin, weed, or alcohol to make themselves feel good. That’s simply because they don’t realize that a far better drug is available. SONDANoBe is what addicts are really craving. They want to feel good, but they’re looking for exogenous chemicals to meet their needs. They don’t understand that what they’re searching for is right inside their own brains. The only reason those drugs feel good to the Gregs of this world is that they’re facsimiles of the substances that their own brains produce. Bliss Brain is a formula, just like the World’s Best Cocktail. It’s the World’s Best High, and it’s just as addictive. The brain that experiences SONDANoBe once can never go back to its old state. By remodeling neural tissue, SONDANoBe consolidates learning and hardwires bliss. While street drugs shrink and damage vital brain regions, SONDANoBe does the opposite. It grows your brain. It expands the brain regions that regulate your emotions, synthesize great ideas, stimulate your creativity, acquire new skills, heal your body, extend your longevity, improve your memory, and boost your happiness. The next chapter shows how a brain bathed in the chemicals of ecstasy starts to change its fundamental structure, as the software of mind becomes the hardware of brain.

My mind suddenly flooded with memories of our relationship. But one in particular was crystalline. Willy and I, years before in Spain. A beautiful valley, the air glittery with that uncommonly clear Mediterranean light, the two of us kneeling behind a green canvas wall as the first hunting horns sounded. Lowering our flat caps as the first partridges burst towards us, bang bang, a few falling, handing our guns to the loaders, who handed us new ones, bang bang, more falling, passing our guns back, our shirts darkening with sweat, the ground filling with birds that would feed nearby villages for weeks, bang, one last shot, neither of us able to miss, then standing at last, drenched, starved, happy, because we were young and together and this was our place, our one true space, away from Them and close to Nature. It was such a transcendent moment that we turned and did that rarest of things—we hugged. Really hugged.

As Jiminy hopped away, the Blue Fairy spun her wand for one last spell before she tucked it away for a year. In her mind, she conjured the smell of cinnamon and pistachios, of chocolate and buttery sugar. A modest plate appeared on her palm, and she inhaled. "Just like home," she whispered to herself. With a wave of her arm, she let go of her wand and made for the humble two-storied house with a yellow door. A lemon or two still hung from the trees brushing against the back window, and a bittersweet pang overcame Chiara's heart. It squeezed inside her, filled with excitement and nervousness and wonder. When she found her courage, she knocked. At first, she didn't think anyone heard. Then from inside, Niccolo's wife shouted: "It's the girls! They must be back early!" Footsteps approached, and Chiara held her breath. Niccolo himself answered the door, and let out a gasp. The expression on her brother's face was one she would treasure all her life. Joy and surprise flooded his eyes as years of forgotten memories came back to him. When he finally cried her name, his voice choked with emotion. "Chiara?" "I know I'm a few years late," she said, finally letting go of her breath. She smiled at her brother. "But is there room for one more at dinner tonight? I've brought cookies.