Ominous Sky Quotes

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that has nothing to do with you, This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.

All the color had been leached from Winterfell until only grey and white remained. The Stark colors. Theon did not know whether he ought to find that ominous or reassuring. Even the sky was grey. The eyes of the bride were brown. Big and brown and full of fear.

It began as most thing begin. Not on a dark and stormy night. Not foreshadowed by ominous here comes the villain music, dire warning at the bottom of a teacup, or dread portents in the sky. It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do. A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and the wind changes, and a warm front hits a cold front off the coast of western Africa and before you know it you’ve got an hurricane closing in. By the time anyone figured out the storm was coming, it was too late to do anything but batten down the hatches and exercise damage control.

There were days when no kid came out of his house without looking around. The week after Halloween had a quality both hungover and ominous, the light pitched, the sky smashed against the rooftops.

...and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky...

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for weeks on end? (b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split? (c) Is there a chance (and please check the box, no matter how small that chance seems) that the ominous mountain casting a midday shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason? Because if the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, then the life you lead is a midnight thing, always a hair's breadth from the witching hour; it is volatile, it is threadbare; it is carefree in the true sense of that term; it is light, losable like a key or a hair clip. And it is lethargy: why not sit all morning, all day, all year, under the same cypress tree drawing the figure eight in the dust? More than that, it is disaster, it is chaos: why not overthrow a government on a whim, why not blind the man you hate, why not go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving your hands, tearing your hair? There's nothing to stop you---or rather anything could stop you, any hour, any minute. That feeling. That's the real difference in a life.

It was what should have been a bright summer day, but the smoke from the burning world filled the sky, through which the sun shone murkily, a dull and lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous.

She feels a splash of water on her hand and, turning, sees that the sky has become overcast with a blanket of ominous dark rose-colored cloud, and of a sudden the light fades from the lawn and the cedars. Steerpike, who is on his way back to the Earl's bedroom, stops a moment at a staircase window to see the first decent of the rain. It is falling from the sky in long, upright, and seemingly motionless lines of rosy silver that stand rigidly upon the ground as though there were a million harp strings strung vertically between the solids of earth and sky.

The Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash into Me” played over the montage, not that the lyrics had anything to do with the images the song was played over but it was “haunting”, it was “moody”, it was “summing things up”, it gave the footage an “emotional resonance” that I guess we were incapable of capturing ourselves. At first my feelings were basically so what? But then I suggested other music: “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, but I was told that the rights were sky-high and that the song was “too ominous” for this sequence; Nada Surf’s “Popular” had “too many minor chords”, it didn’t fit the “mood of the piece,” it was – again – “too ominous.” When I told them I seriously did not think things could get any more fucking ominous than they already were, I was told, “Things get very much more ominous, Victor,” and then I was left alone.

In these countless stars, in their clusters and colors and constellations, in the “shooting” showers of blazing dust and ice, we have always found beauty. And in this beauty, the overwhelming size of the universe has seemed less ominous, earth’s own beauty more incredible. If indeed the numbers and distances of the night sky are so large that they become nearly meaningless, then let us find the meaning under our feet.

It was dark now, and broodingly sluggish. Like something supine waiting to spring, with just the tip of its tail twitching. Leaves stood still on the trees. An evil green star glinted in the black sky like a hostile eye, like an evil spying eye. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")

The sea slapped ominously, confessing its strategic impartiality. The sea is an international sea, and the sky a universal sky. Often we forget that. Often we think that what is verging upon us is ours alone. We forget that there are other sides entirely.

No Absolutes The sound of the human voice like the bell ring of metal and crisp air under grey skies— romantic yet ominous— Don’t worry about contradictions. No one is innocent. No one is guilty. We are all misunderstood even by ourselves. Yet when we know love we know everything.

He pointed to the sky in which Mars twinkled above the darkening roofs, large and red. “Yes, and they say that that fellow up there is closer to our earth than he has been for many years.” He laughed. “Soon we’ll read that somewhere a child has been born with a mole like a sword. And that it was raining blood somewhere else. The only thing missing now is the enigmatic comet of the Middle Ages to make all the ominous signs complete

In crime the egoist has hitherto asserted himself and mocked at the sacred; the break with the sacred, or rather of the sacred, may become general. A revolution never returns, but an immense, reckless, shameless, conscienceless, proud—crime, doesn't it rumble in the distant thunder, and don't you see how the sky grows ominously silent and gloomy?

The sea had changed. It was dark green now with white-horses, and the rocks shone yellow like phosphorus. Rumbling solemnly the thunder-storm came up from the south. It spread its black sail over the sea; it spread over half the sky and the lightning flashed with an ominous glint. "It's coming right over the island," thought Snufkin with a thrill of joy and excitement. He imagined he was sailing high up over the clouds, and perhaps shooting out to sea on a hissing flash of lightning.

For three weeks it had rained every day. For those past three weeks, daybreak was a gloomy affair. The skies gradually moved from a thick blanket of dingy white clouds to the deepest shade of grey, peaking here and there in ominous black thunderheads

From around the corner's edge a grotesque light was trickling out, the first intimations of an ominous sunrise over a dark horizon. I dimly recognized this colored light, though not from my waking memory. It grew more intense, now pouring out in weird streams from beyond the solid margin of the building. And the more intense it grew, the more clearly I could hear the screaming voice that had called out to me in a dream. I shouted his name, but the swelling colored brightness was a field of fear which kept me from making any move toward it. It was no amalgam of colors comparable to anything in mortal experience. It was as if all natural colors had been mutated into a painfully lush iridescence by some prism fantastically corrupted in its form; it was a rainbow staining the sky after a poison deluge; it was an aurora painting the darkness with a blaze of insanity, a blaze that did not burn vigorously but shimmered with an insect-jeweled frailness. And, in actuality, it was nothing like these color-filled effusions, which are merely a feeble means of partially fixing a reality uncommunicable to those not initiated to it, a necessary resorting to the makeshift gibberish of the mystic isolated by his experience and left without a language to describe it. ("The Dreaming In Nortown")

You're mine now, Harry thought at the walls of Diagon Alley, and all the shops and items, and all the shopkeepers and customers; and all the lands and people of wizarding Britain, and all the wider wizarding world; and the entire greater universe of which Muggle scientists understood so much less than they believed. I, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, do now claim this territory in the name of Science. Lightning and thunder completely failed to flash and boom in the cloudless skies. "What are you smiling about?" inquired Professor McGonagall, warily and wearily. "I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution," explained Harry. He was carefully memorising the exact words of his ominous resolution so that future history books would get it right.

The witch's eyes glint with an ominous mixture of the green and black and purple the sky turns before a tornado. Her lips and cheeks hint at a beauty behind a smile she has forgotten how to use. A patina of loneliness and years past obscure an allure that was more pronounced once upon a time.

For a long while, he sat on the steps and sharpened the chain-saw blade with a round file, dipping it in bar-and-chain oil and raking it over each tooth with sleek, grating sounds. He lost himself in the rhythm of the labor. A victory over tears is a small thing, but it was his. The sky went from indigo to blackness, and he saw nothing ominous in it, nothing but cold stars wheeling in their course, a course determined by the same firm hand he hoped was guiding his own. But satellites, too, crossed the sky in sly, winking arcs. Sull knew that. He could not let himself be confounded. He went inside, to sleep beside his wife.

Socially, too, we have seen a defiant Promethianism that is basically innocuous: the confident power that can catapult man to the moon and free him somewhat of his complete dependence and confinement on earth-at least in his imagination. The ugly side of this Promethianism is that it, too, is thoughtless, an empty-headed immersion in the delights of technics with not thought to goals or meaning; so man performs on the moon by hitting golf balls that do not swerve in the lack of atmosphere. The technical triumph of a versatile ape, as the makers of the film 2001 so chillingly conveyed to us. On more ominous levels, as we shall develop later on, modern man's defiance of accident, evil, and death takes the form of sky-rocketing production of consumer and military goods. Carried to its demonic extreme this defiance gave us Hitler and Vietnam: a rage against our impotence, a defiance of our animal condition, our pathetic creature limitations. If we don't have the omnipotence of gods, we at least can destroy like gods.

The sky thundered suddenly, an ominous, brooding doom. Heather felt panic growing inside her. “It’s nothing,” she said aloud. “I’m not afraid of this

I would have no problem with you driving my car if you would keep it under ninety." "And I'd have no problem with riding in your car if you'd keep it over geriatric," Ronan replied." It was early November; the trees were handsome; the sky was clear; excitement was in the air. The three brothers debated in a Goodwill parking lot; those entering and leaving stared. they were an eye-catchingly mismatched threesome: Ronan, with his ominous boots and ominous expression; Declan, with his perfectly controlled curls and dutiful gray suit; Matthew, with his outstandingly ugly checked pants and cheerfully blue puffer coat. Ronan continued, "There are stains that spread faster than you drive. If you drive, it'll take fourteen years to get there. Seventeen. Forty. One hundred. We'll be driving to your funeral by the end.

Winter? Everything all right?” “I can’t go there,” Winter said. “Why not?” Qibli asked, startled. “It’s cursed.” Winter waved a talon at the sharp-edged shapes of the mountains. “No IceWing has ever returned from those mountains alive. They’re a legend as old as Darkstalker in our tribe.” “With a poetically ominous-sounding name, I bet,” said Qibli. “Peaks of Doom? Mountain Range of Certain Death?” Winter frowned at him. “We call them Darkstalker’s Teeth,” he said with immense dignity. “Seriously?” Qibli cried. “SERIOUSLY? A mountain range called Darkstalker’s Teeth, and you never thought maybe the old Night Kingdom was on the other side?” “It’s not like I think about it very often!” Winter objected. “And no, honestly, we all assumed he went around cursing random parts of Pyrrhia as traps for IceWings to fall into.” “What are we waiting for?” Anemone demanded, flying back to them. “Winter thinks the mountains are going to eat him,” Qibli answered. “I DO NOT,” Winter protested. “But I do think they’re going to kill me, yes.” “Um, a whole horde of dragons just flew over them a few days ago.” Anemone flicked her tail at the evening sky, dimming to purple. “And they’re all fine.” “Because they’re not IceWings,” Winter pointed out. “The mountains only eat IceWings,” Qibli explained with a straight face. “STOP THAT,” Winter hissed at him. “It’s a REAL CURSE.” “If it’s real, then it’s not a curse, it’s a spell,” Qibli said practically. “And if it’s a spell, then Darkstalker cast it, in which case the earring will protect you.” Winter touched his ear doubtfully. One piece of jewelry against centuries of nightmare stories … Qibli could practically see Winter’s courage trying to stamp out his childhood fears. “You’ll make it through,” he said. “Remember, Moon is on the other side.” He knew that would work, because it was working for him. Winter gave him a puzzled look, as though he would never understand Qibli. “Yes,” he said. “All right. Let’s fly.” “Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally,” Anemone grouched, wheeling about in the sky. As

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

There is always a simple way of saying things," said Fafhrd ominously. "But there is where I differ with you," returned the adept, almost animatedly. "There are no ways of saying certain things, and others are so difficult that a man pines and dies before the right words are found. One must borrow phrases from the sky, words from beyond the stars. Else were all an ignorant, imprisoning mockery.

We assume Orwell’s 1984 dystopian nightmare can’t happen here, yet we’ve been narcotized into a more ominous Orwellian somnambulism. We’re inebriated on our own mythology, priapic at our military supremacy, and malleable via our ionic imagery, whether it’s Jesus or the flag. Jacked up on Adderall, Red Bull and patriotism, we only unite in war, tragedy and the Super Bowl. We’ve become style over substance, image over reality, propaganda over truth, and symbol over meaning. We claim to value education, yet mistrust intelligence. Immune to facts, frightened of change, we think magically; magic potions that will heal us, magic diets that will shrink us, and magic beliefs that will save us. And we think all this behavior has been blessed by a big daddy in the sky who lovingly placed us here for profit, guns, and heterosexual marriage. Perhaps evolution is a myth, in that we seem to be devolving. The

was with them in this strange place? “Well, we’ll just have to keep going.” Brambleclaw padded out from the trees. A grassy bank sloped down in front of him to a narrow valley. Beyond, a ridge rose into the indigo sky, its curving side shadowed by forest. As the cats began to pad out of the copse, still blinking and stretching, Leafpaw glanced up at the sky. Clouds obscured the stars. “Don’t worry about the sign.” Her father’s voice surprised her, and she turned to find him standing beside her. “You are still an apprentice medicine cat,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t feel responsible if StarClan wishes to remain silent.” She gazed gratefully into his emerald eyes as he went on. “I’m proud of you. And Squirrelpaw too—even though Cinderpelt’s prophecy frightened me for a while.” “Cinderpelt’s prophecy?” Leafpaw echoed. “StarClan’s sign that fire and tiger would destroy the Clan.” Leafpaw blinked. Cinderpelt’s ominous warning seemed a lifetime away now. “Now I think I understand what it meant.” Firestar gazed

Every Saturday I would go to the library and choose my books for the week. One late-autumn morning, despite menacing clouds, I bundled up and walked as always, past the peach orchards, the pig farm and the skating rink to the fork in the road that led to our sole library. The sight of so many books never failed to excite me, rows and rows of books with multicolored spines. I’d spent an inordinate amount of time choosing my stack of books that day, with the sky growing more ominous. At first, I wasn’t worried as I had long legs and was a pretty fast walker, but then it became apparent that there was no way I was going to beat the impending storm. It grew colder, the winds picked up, followed by heavy rains, then pelting hail. I slid the books under my coat to protect them, I had a long way to go; I stepped in puddles and could feel the icy water permeate my ankle socks. When I finally reached home my mother shook her head with sympathetic exasperation, prepared a hot bath and made me go to bed. I came down with bronchitis and missed several days of school. But it had been worth it, for I had my books, among them The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Half Magic and The Dog of Flanders. Wonderful books that I read over and over, only accessible to me through our library.

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by and by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it, too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his — let us say — nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which — as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times — were offered up to him — do you understand? — to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings — we approach them with the might of a deity,' and so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' etc., etc. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence — of words — of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!

For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle names becomes “boy” (however old you are), and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

The first mile was torture. I passed beneath the massive stone arch at the entrance to the school, pulled off the road and threw up. I felt better and ran down the long palm-lined drive to the Old Quad. Lost somewhere in the thicket to my left was the mausoleum containing the remains of the family by whom the university had been founded. Directly ahead of me loomed a cluster of stone buildings, the Old Quad. I stumbled up the steps and beneath an archway into a dusty courtyard which, with its clumps of spindly bushes and cacti, resembled the garden of a desert monastery. All around me the turrets and dingy stone walls radiated an ominous silence, as if behind each window there stood a soldier with a musket waiting to repel any invader. I looked up at the glittering facade of the chapel across which there was a mosaic depicting a blond Jesus and four angels representing Hope, Faith, Charity, and, for architectural rather than scriptural symmetry, Love. In its gloomy magnificence, the Old Quad never failed to remind me of the presidential palace of a banana republic. Passing out of the quad I cut in front of the engineering school and headed for a back road that led up to the foothills. There was a radar installation at the summit of one of the hills called by the students the Dish. It sat among herds of cattle and the ruins of stables. It, too, was a ruin, shut down for many years, but when the wind whistled through it, the radar produced a strange trilling that could well be music from another planet. The radar was silent as I slowed to a stop at the top of the Dish and caught my breath from the upward climb. I was soaked with sweat, and my headache was gone, replaced by giddy disorientation. It was a clear, hot morning. Looking north and west I saw the white buildings, bridges and spires of the city of San Francisco beneath a crayoned blue sky. The city from this aspect appeared guileless and serene. Yet, when I walked in its streets what I noticed most was how the light seldom fell directly, but from angles, darkening the corners of things. You would look up at the eaves of a house expecting to see a gargoyle rather than the intricate but innocent woodwork. The city had this shadowy presence as if it was a living thing with secrets and memories. Its temperament was too much like my own for me to feel safe or comfortable there. I looked briefly to the south where San Jose sprawled beneath a polluted sky, ugly and raw but without secrets or deceit. Then I stretched and began the slow descent back into town.

Sweat streaked her face and darkened her red hair. Her free hand was scratched and bleeding where she had scraped it against a thorn tree. He caught that small hand in his and held it up to examine the wound. The tip of a broken thorn was embedded in her palm. He raised her hand to his lips and felt the splinter with the tip of his tongue. She gasped and pulled her hand back. “Be still,” he admonished. “Do you want me to cut it out with my knife?” A thorn could fester and turn flesh black with poison. Dead, she was of no use to him. She shook her head. Her hand trembled as she held it out to him. Her sky eyes were wary, the expression like that of a doe he had once seen crossing a frozen lake in winter. The ice had been rotten, and it creaked ominously with each step the deer took. Still she had continued on until she reached the far bank and safety. He wondered if firm earth waited for this female with the strange blue eyes. Eventual safety or . . . A shudder of revulsion rippled through him. War should be between men, he thought. And no matter how much contempt he felt for Simon Brandt and those he led to Indian country, he could not find it in his heart to despise this courageous woman, even if she was without honor. Gently, he bent and brushed his lips against her hand, then, when he found the thorn with his tongue, he closed his teeth on it and pulled it free. Blood welled up from her palm as he spat out the bit of wood. He scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it against the injury. She blinked. Moisture glistened in her round eyes and for a second he thought she might begin to cry. Then her eyes narrowed and the expression gleaming there hardened. Again, Talon reminded himself that she was his enemy’s wife, and that she wished him dead.

Distorted, clawed hands hung the bag of precious herbs around the thick, muscular neck of the wolf, and then the animal took off in a dead run, racing the climbing sun as it burned away the thick cloud covering. Fur began to smoke, and blisters rose beneath the thick pelt. Thunder cracked unexpectedly. Thick black clouds, heavy with rain, blew across the sky, providing Mikhail with dense cover from the sun. The storm rolled in over the forest fast, with wild winds kicking up leaves and swaying branches. A bolt of lightning sizzled across the sky in a fiery whip of dancing light. The sky darkened to an ominous cauldron of boiling clouds. Mikhail bounded into the cave and raced along the narrow maze of passages toward the main chamber, shape-shifting as he ran. Gregori’s cool silver gaze slid over him as Mikhail relinquished the herbs. “It is a wonder you have been able to tie your shoes without me all of these centuries.” Mikhail sank down beside his brother, one hand over his burning eyes. “It is more of a wonder you have stayed alive with your ostentatious displays. Remind me to remove my impressionable brother from your disrespectful presence before your winning ways rub off on him.

Before her, Triistan finished his eulogy and held out a small flask of seal-oil, slowly pouring the contents over the book and chest as he led the others in the Oath: "To sail beyond the Wind, to find that which has been Lost, and drive back the Darkness with the torch of Discovery." As he spoke, he used a taper to transfer a small flame from a watch lamp they had lit for this purpose to the chest with Braeghan's book inside, where it caught immediately. The Crone was nearly touching the far horizon now, and two-thirds of the sky had faded to a luminescent cobalt blue, as if the heavens themselves were aglow with Veheg's Fire. The sea stretched away in all directions, empty and ominous in its vastness and its secrets, deadly but beautiful, brushed by pink and gold to the west, and blending into dark infinity to the east. Several early stars had appeared in that direction, beckoning them homeward... From the upcoming RUINE series.

Against all probability the war machine was actually flying. Bristling with every kind of weapon imaginable, it filled the sky like an ominous storm cloud; a vast slab of hastily riveted steel, topped with a hundred or so yards of London clay and a square mile of its most historic sites.

The sky looks ominous one minute, inviting the next. It all depends on the angle.

The collapse of society was the western front, that conflict augmented by a lack of preparation, limited physical resources, and a severe shortage of human assets. A dark, ominous cloud of uncertainty was the enemy’s primary weapon. Levi was certain that this was going to be a war of attrition. On the eastern front loomed old age. Twenty years ago, Levi would have feared no man. While he’d never spoiled for a fight in any theatre, when one came his way, he had always felt up to the task. Years of military schools and courses had instilled this confidence. Numerous engagements on the battlefield had proven him worthy. That man, however, had been a different Levi York, both physically and mentally. Now, Father Time was employing a strategy that seemed destined to make him fail. He knew the outcome of this battle was inevitable. Ultimately, he had no chance of winning. He was a ball player intentionally fouling his opponent, merely wrangling to prolong the game, desperately trying to stop the clock from counting down to zero. “Aren’t we all fighting for more time?” he reflected as he prepared for his shift on patrol. “Isn’t that what this is all about? I’ve fought insurgents, radicalized religious zealots, power-hungry holy men, and indoctrinated crazies,” he proclaimed to the mirror. “In every single case, we gave better than what we received. I controlled the field at the end of day, each and every time. Is it finally my turn to fall? Will the combination of foes we’re facing finally take me out of the fight?” he ranted. As he pondered his own questions for several moments more, Levi’s spine stiffened, his shoulders squaring off. “Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “You’re not going down without leaving your best on the field. You’re not going to fade quietly into the night. To the end, you’re going to give it your best, old man.

syndrome, homies identify with, and grow attached to, their weaknesses and difficulties and burdens. You hope, in the light of this, to shift their attention and allegiance to their own basic goodness. You show them the bright blue sky of their sacredness, and they are transfixed only by the ominous clouds. You stand there with them and encourage them to stare above and wait twenty minutes. “You are the sky,” as Pema Chödrön would insist. “Everything else, it’s just weather.

neck when the temperature changes in the room, or the ominous feeling you get in your gut when you feel someone watching you, or the inexplicable intuition you sense when you know something is about to happen…good or bad.

Bliss couldn't recall ever seeing a sky so black or stars so bright, with the moon hanging so low over the trees. The drive had been long and wearisome, and as they'd been warned, the hike was steep and treacherous.

I left the village slowly, getting used to the feel of the car. It was mid-morning, and although the roads were busy, the ominous sky and strong winds were keeping most pedestrians indoors. The weather and the churning grey sea reminded me of childhood trips to the seaside from our home in south London. Hastings and Margate and Eastbourne. It was always either blazingly hot, with my sister running screaming from the wasps that seemed to believe she was their queen, or – more often – pissing down. I had strong memories of sitting in the back seat of the car, eating chips, with the smell of vinegar and the sound of the windscreen wipers squeaking back and forth

I quickly descend the porch steps and make my way to the truck. It’s still gloomy out. The trees are swaying ominously. The clouds are a thick, dark mass undulating overhead. The sky is more black than gray. And yet my future has never looked brighter.

Outlandish feelings Outlandish worlds exist within us all, Because there are stars that rise and then they fall, Stars that belonged to a different world and now here in an alien world they are, Alienated from their native skies to be cast into worlds astoundingly too far, And in this outlandishness of rising feelings and many a belief, The mind with the heart seeks familiar trails of relief, But both lie mired in their unwillingness to accept forced retirement, Because loving her thoughts, believing in her brings wavers of excitement, That condition the mind to seek the heart that felt and knew her so well, In this outlandish emotional landscape where fate launches its ominous spell, To never let the mind find the heart that easily fell for her charms, Trapping the mind in new emotional storms, Where life is turned into this falling star, That gets thrown into a world of alien sentiments and a new emotional spar, Between the mind that seeks those known feelings and the heart that knew her so well, And deals with the hostile world of emotions where nothing feels like her and nothing bears her smell, And it is in these outlandish territories of life that few of us seek a domicile existence, Even if that means indulging in pretense and experience a few artificial moments of romance, Whatever the case maybe, the romantic mind always seeks the romantic heart, In these unknown landscapes where the fakeness of the alien feelings every sense does so easily outsmart, Until the mind learns to calm itself with the hope that fallen stars rise and shine again, And it forms a covenant of survival with the diabolic and ruthlessly crude spells of pain. And then life continues to wander in all directions seeking the heart that knew her, Until one day it resembles the life that hangs on the devil’s spur! But the aging mind is still rigid and unwilling to believe in the deceptive landscapes of this outlandish territory, Because it remembers all the heart beats of love and still believes in their fraternity, Finally one day the mind rises once again above the feelings of alienation, Because few minds believe in endlessly seeking her sequestered feelings of love with a God like determination!

The reality of combat always exceeds the boundaries of imagination. Every battle is an amalgamation of a thousand personal battles, and each man's fight a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, and smells that burn into his consciousness and echo for as long as his life lasts. A man excited to rage runs across a smoky stubble field. One moment he is bounding ahead on eager legs. A second later he is shocked to find the ground leaping up to dash him rudely in the mouth. His teeth clack, he tastes the gritty soil. He gasps for air. Hot liquid seeps ominously from his belly. Sounds echo and recede. An idea quivers on the edge of his mind. A word forms on his dry tongue. No breath to voice it. The sun shines on him from a night sky.

I understood the ominous sky because it was so much like you, and I was the sun always willing to burn for our love.

Rumours of an impending war, omens in the winter sky, nightmares, sudden deaths, ominous flights of migratory birds — all premonitions of bad things to come for Mankind and the Middle Worlds.

You know that feeling you get, when the sky has turned green, air raid sirens are blowing, the theme to the "Wizard of Oz" wafts softly through the air, your neighbor has just blown by backwards on her bicycle, and an ominous funnel cloud is hovering on the horizon? Yeah, that feeling. the one that says that says "A picnic! That's what I need to do right about now! What could possible go wrong?

By the time he spotted the City of Naru from afar, moonlight sent long, wiry shadows across the hillside leading up to the towering stone walls. He told himself he could do it. No matter how hard it was to continue carrying her, he was determined to bring her home alive.  Lights flickered from countless braziers mounted hundreds of feet high on the upper part of the city. Naru stood ominous under the garish light of the four moon sisters and as the evening gong sounded from atop a watchtower, Talis knew he had made it.  He stumbled toward the main gates, barely able to stand. A group of soldiers making their rounds noticed and ran over to help.  “Young Master Talis, what’s wrong?” said Baratis, the captain of the guard. His eyes blazed in fear at the sight of Mara. “Is she alive?” “I can’t talk now… open the gates… she’s hurt!”  “Carem and Jorem! Help them,” Baratis shouted. “You! Ride and fetch a healer. Have them run straightaway to House Lei. Now go!” Two soldiers lifted Mara from Talis' arms and carried her while another raced inside the city. Massive steel shafts stared down at them from inside the stone walls as they jogged past. If they weren’t quick about it, she would die. Ahead, Talis could see a soldier speed off on horseback. He prayed that the healer would arrive in time. He ran ahead, urging them to run faster.    Past the gate was the Arena of the Sej Elders, formed of gigantic white granite blocks, rising over everything in the lower part of the city. Stone towers lined the wide avenue leading up to the arena. They had to move faster. The soldiers’ boots clapped against the cobblestone streets as they marched past the arena, finally winding up and around until they reached the gates of the upper city. Up the snaking rise, they charged past merchant shops and eyes that gawked at the soldiers carrying Mara. They continued on to the highest part of the city, beneath the Temple of the Goddess Nestria, the Goddess of the Sky. To Mara’s house, the House of Viceroy Lei and Lady Malvia, daughter of the king and second in line to the throne.  They were going to be furious; Talis knew he was in serious trouble for taking Mara out on the hunt. But he couldn’t think of that, all that mattered was Mara’s life. As the soldiers carried her into the white marble mansion, Talis worried her wounds were too grave to cure. Today was the worst day and he was all to blame. Why did he have to chase after the boar? Two servants ran up and gasped when they noticed Mara and they quickly helped her inside.  Lady Malvia rushed to them, her silver robe swirling.

Our baby was two months old on that warm September evening when the skies turned a disturbing shade of pink. I knew the color well; it’s that of a sky whose oxygen is being sucked away by a distant, ominous force. I knew a storm was coming; I could smell it in the air. Marlboro Man was on a remote section of the ranch, helping Tim process steers. Much stronger now that the baby was sleeping through the night, I’d been catching up on laundry and housework all day. By late afternoon, I had a pot roast in the oven and the black clouds had started to move in. “I’ll be home in an hour,” Marlboro Man said, calling me from his mobile phone. “Is it raining there?” I asked. “It’s eerie here at our house.” “The lightning is striking out here,” he said. “It’s kind of exciting.” I laughed. Marlboro Man loved thunderstorms.

desk into a small and lonely light and floated in dreams on a skiff of words. He blinked away the shadows of an ominous image, something tremendous, dark, winged, blotting over the sparkle of the rising sun. Kipling stood up, one hand pressing the cloth, the other still shielding his eyes. “An airplane,” he said. The double wings dipped and a trail of black smoke stained the perfect blue sky and then the craft lurched and dropped below the level of the trees.

When you look for His fingerprint in nature, you find it everywhere. The design really is amazing. I think about how much He must love us to have created it this way, you know? If He wanted to create life, He could have just done it like an ant farm. He could have just created a surface for us and left it at that. But instead, He made something so intricate and full of wonder. I come out here every evening, and every evening, without fail, there is a different sky for me to look at. Sometimes it's full of color, sometimes there are clouds that look like someone honest-to-goodness painted them with a paintbrush, sometimes there are dark, ominous-looking clouds, and sometimes it's just all blue or all grey. Every single day, He creates a different backdrop for me. He gives me a picture in the sky that constantly changes. I just can't help but be thankful when I think about His creation. He must really just love us to make something so beautiful, you know?" Lances words caused tears to sting my eyes. It was a truth that I took for granted. I was thankful to him for reminding me that God cared enough to paint a different picture in the sky every day.

protests. A wound like that was incredibly dangerous. If he didn’t get her to a healer soon, he knew Mara would die. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. After a long while, he was too tired to carry her, so he rested for a bit, his breath heaving and stiff arms and legs protesting. Even though it was almost dark, Talis could see that Mara’s face looked white as chalk. He had to keep going, no matter what, no matter how much his legs and back burned from carrying her. By the time he spotted the City of Naru from afar, moonlight sent long, wiry shadows across the hillside leading up to the towering stone walls. He told himself he could do it. No matter how hard it was to continue carrying her, he was determined to bring her home alive. Lights flickered from countless braziers mounted hundreds of feet high on the upper part of the city. Naru stood ominous under the garish light of the four moon sisters and as the evening gong sounded from atop a watchtower, Talis knew he had made it. He stumbled toward the main gates, barely able to stand. A group of soldiers making their rounds noticed and ran over to help. “Young Master Talis, what’s wrong?” said Baratis, the captain of the guard. His eyes blazed in fear at the sight of Mara. “Is she alive?” “I can’t talk now… open the gates… she’s hurt!” “Carem and Jorem! Help them,” Baratis shouted. “You! Ride and fetch a healer. Have them run straightaway to House Lei. Now go!” Two soldiers lifted Mara from Talis' arms and carried her while another raced atop a horse into the city. Massive steel shafts stared down at them from inside the stone walls as they jogged past. If they weren’t quick about it, she would die. Ahead, Talis could see a soldier speed off on horseback. He prayed that the healer would arrive in time. He ran ahead, urging them to run faster. Past the gate was the Arena of the Sej Elders, formed of gigantic white granite blocks, rising over everything in the lower part of the city. Stone towers lined the wide avenue leading up to the arena. They had to move faster. The soldiers’ boots clapped against the cobblestone streets as they marched past the arena, finally winding up and around until they reached the gates of the upper city. Up the snaking rise, they charged past merchant shops and eyes that gawked at the soldiers carrying Mara. They continued on to the highest part of the city, beneath the Temple of the Goddess Nestria, the Goddess of the Sky. To Mara’s house, the House of Viceroy Lei and Lady Malvia, daughter of the king and second in line to the throne. They were going to be furious; Talis knew he was in serious trouble for going with Mara out on the hunt. But he couldn’t think of that, all that mattered was Mara’s life. As the soldiers carried her into the white marble mansion, Talis worried her wounds were too grave to cure. Today was the worst day and he blamed himself. Why hadn’t he stopped Mara from going after the boar? He could have scared it off. She would have been angry at him, but at least she wouldn’t be injured. Two servants ran up and gasped when they noticed Mara. They quickly helped her inside, shouting for help.

You call it darkness. But it was that quality in you that made you open the world for us. It made you seek out the healing techniques that you have passed on to me, to others. It allowed you to perform the miracles that you have performed for our people. It has done the same for Julian," Aidan replied softly. The silver eyes paled to steel. Cold. Bleak. Empty. "It led both of us to things that should never have been learned. In the acquisition of knowledge comes power, Aidan. But without rules, without emotions, without a concept of right or wrong, it is far too easy to abuse that power." "All Carpathians are aware of that, Gregori," Aidan argued. "You, more than most, know the concept of right and wrong. And so does Julian. Why have you endured, resisted wrong, when others turned? You fought for justice, for our people. You had a code, and you have always lived up to it, as you are doing now. You say you have no feeling, but what of the compassion you felt for your lifemate when she was so frightened? You cannot turn. Every moment is an eternity for you, I know, but you have an end in sight." Gregori's cold eyes seemed to impale Aidan, but the younger Carpathian did not flinch. He held Gregori's gaze until Alexandria could have sworn she saw a flicker of fire, a flame, springing from one to the other. Gregori's hard mouth softened slightly. "You have learned well, Aidan. You are a healer of both body and mind." Aidan inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. The wind howled, the waves crashed, and Gregori launched himself into the dark, roiling clouds. A black shape spread across the sky, an ominous shadow staining the heavens, and then it moved north and faded away as if it had never been, taking the storm with it.

You, more than most, know the concept of right and wrong. And so does Julian. Why have you endured, resisted wrong, when others turned? You fought for justice, for our people. You had a code, and you have always lived up to it, as you are doing now. You say you have no feeling, but what of the compassion you felt for your lifemate when she was so frightened? You cannot turn. Every moment is an eternity for you, I know, but you have an end in sight." Gregori's cold eyes seemed to impale Aidan, but the younger Carpathian did not flinch. He held Gregori's gaze until Alexandria could have sworn she saw a flicker of fire, a flame, springing from one to the other. Gregori's hard mouth softened slightly. "You have learned well, Aidan. You are a healer of both body and mind." Aidan inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. The wind howled, the waves crashed, and Gregori launched himself into the dark, roiling clouds. A black shape spread across the sky, an ominous shadow staining the heavens, and then it moved north and faded away as if it had never been, taking the storm with it. Aidan sank into the sand, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking, as if he was trying to control some great emotion that had overcome him. Alexandria circled his head with her arms. She could feel sobs tearing at his throat and chest, yet he made no sound. Only a single, blood-red tear marked his great sorrow. "I am sorry, cara, but he is a great man, one our people cannot afford to lose. I could feel his bleakness, the inner demon waiting to devour him. To have to honor my promise to him, to have to hunt him..." He shook his head. "It is such a disservice to one who has dedicated his life to our people, to our Prince." Alexandria's breath caught in her throat. She had thought Aidan invincible. Capable, even, of hunting vampires and triumphing over their evil power. But Gregori was a different proposition. Even with two hunters such as Aidan, it didn't seem possible that he could be defeated. "Can't you contact this woman, the one who could save him?" Aidan shook his head regretfully. "He would continue to honor his vow, and her presence would only make things worse.