Quick Beach Quotes

I go to the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward and snap, "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin." It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand. "About time" I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Haymitch. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with him.

I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

Normally, small talk is enough for me to form an opinion of someone. I make quick judgments, often completely wrong, and then stick by them rigidly.

The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

…Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak—and then as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us…Each of us would remember that all during our lives. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set, and I would go back in my imagination, and return to where happiness seemed so easy to touch.

My mind was quickly consumed with thoughts of my girlfriend and all the good times we had had, like one of those cheesy montages ni eighties movies, when the angsty protagonist envisions himself and his ex holding hands on the beach, feeding a small puppy, getting into some kind of zany wrestling match with whipped cream. I interrupted my cliché memories by saying aloud: "Ugh, I'm feeling pretty low about this whole thing." "You just gotta try to put it out of your head," he said, folding the paper halfway down to look at me. "I know, it's just hard. I mean, I still have stuff at her place. What am I going to do about that? I still have a TV...," I said. "Fuck the TV. Leave the TV. Cut your ties." "It's a fifteen-hundred-dollar TV," I insisted. "Go get that fucking TV.

Anna’s one of those people who get fired up about injustices in the world; quick to quiver with rage because other people don’t ignite like she does.

so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, ‘I am guarding you—I am your support," but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorsely beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow—this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up with an impulse of terror.

When she sees him, Holly says, it's like the sunsets at the beach--once the sun drops, the sand chills quickly. Then it's like a lot of times that were good ten minutes ago and don't count now.

He's kissing me, quick desperate kisses, like I'm something he needs to live; and I'm kissing him back, crazy with the ache I feel for him, trying to kiss him better, trying to fix him. I'm touching his face, feeling the roughness of his beard, the wet of his tears, feeling the tremors passing through his body, hearing his ragged breathing. And each kiss is a failure. A failed attempt to escape from all that's happening. And I only know this when he slows, drawing it out, letting me taste regret, letting things linger. He pulls away, and I'm saying "Don't, don't, don't", trying to bring him back, kissing his face. But I've lost him.

The moon, a sliver of white light, rose a hand above the horizon, then, tired, fell back. The purple blackness overhead faded into grey, the grey into pale blue; this was followed quickly by pastel reds and oranges, and finally, yellow rays streamed through the trees as the sun climbed.

I was in Sarasota, Florida, on a spring-break trip with my friends Bruce and Karen Moore. Bruce and I were waiting on the beach for the rest of our crew when and a man and his grown kids came strolling up the sand. They looked at me for a minute, sort of hesitating, and then asked, "Would you mind taking a picture?" "Sure," I said, and quickly arranged all of us in a line, putting myself in the middle and motioning to Bruce to come snap the photo. Right about that time, the father said, "Actually, we were wondering if you could take a picture just of us." An understandable mistake on my part, but really embarrassing. Bruce has had a field day reminding me of that one ever since. Lesson learned: Never assume anything about your own importance. It's a great big world, and all of us are busy living our lives. None of us knows all the time and effort that another person puts into his or her passion.

Life is a thing--if you'll excuse a quick dab of philosophy before you know what kind of picture I'm painting--that reminds me quite a bit of the beaches around Tokyo Bay

And quickly. If you let it, grief could swallow you whole.

Sometimes love happens quickly.

I was in bed at my beach house, but could not sleep because of some fried chicken in the icebox that I felt entitled to. I waited till my wife dropped off, and tiptoed into the kitchen. I remembered looking at the clock. It was precisely four-fifteen. I'm quite certain of this, because our kitchen clock has not worked in twenty-one years and is always at that time. I also noticed that our dog, Judas, was acting funny. He was sanding up on his hind legs and singing, 'I Enjoy Being a Girl.' Suddenly the room turned bright orange. At first, I thought my wife had caught me eating between meals and set fire to the house. Then I looked out the window, where to my amazement I saw a gigantic cigar-shaped aircraft hovering just over the treetops in the yard and emitting an orange glow. I stood transfixed for what must have been several hours, though our clock still read four-fifteen, so it was difficult to tell. Finally, a large, mechanical claw extended from the aircraft and snatched the two pieces of chicken from my hand and quickly retreated. When I reported the incident to the Air Force, they told me that what I had seen was a flock of birds. When I protested, Colonel Quincy Bascomb personally promised that the Air Force would return the two pieces of chicken. To this day, I have only received one piece.

Don’t look so worried. I’ve sailed the seven seas, and I’ve never had an unsuccessful adventure yet!” “Really? You’ve sailed all seven seas?” asked Darwin admiringly. “Every last one!” “What are the seven seas? I’ve always wondered.” “Aaarrr. Well, let’s see…” said the Pirate Captain, scratching his craggy forehead. “There’s the North Sea. And that other one, the one near Mozambique. And…what’s that one in Hyde Park?” “The Serpentine?” “That’s the one. How many’s that then? Three. Um. There’s the sea with all the rocks in it…I think they call it Sea Number Four. Then that would leave…uh…Grumpy and Sneezy…” Darwin was starting to look a little less impressed. “Would you look at that big seagull!” said the Pirate Captain, quickly ducking into a beach hut.

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright-- And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done-- "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!" The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying over head-- There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: "If this were only cleared away," They said, "it WOULD be grand!" "If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That they could get it clear?" "I doubt it," said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. "O Oysters, come and walk with us!" The Walrus did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each." The eldest Oyster looked at him. But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head-- Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat-- And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more-- All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings." "But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!" "No hurry!" said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed-- Now if you're ready Oysters dear, We can begin to feed." "But not on us!" the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue, "After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!" "The night is fine," the Walrus said "Do you admire the view? "It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!" The Carpenter said nothing but "Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf-- I've had to ask you twice!" "It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The butter's spread too thick!" "I weep for you," the Walrus said. "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size. Holding his pocket handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. "O Oysters," said the Carpenter. "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?" But answer came there none-- And that was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

We think of history as moments of upheaval when forces converge, the sudden upthrust of the ground we're standing on, catastrophe. But sometimes history is simply detritus: midden mounds, ghost nets, panoramic beaches of plastic sand. Sometimes both: a continual convergence of stories unfolding too quickly or too gradually to follow; sometimes, too intimate to know.

I had taken out of my pocket the photographs of us all which I had wanted to show Freddie, and among them the photo of Gay Orlov as a little girl. I had not noticed until then that she was crying. One could tell by the wrinkling of her brows. For a moment, my thoughts transported me far from this lagoon, to the other end of the world, to a seaside resort in Southern Russia where the photo had been taken, long ago. A little girl is returning from the beach, at dusk, with her mother. She is crying for no reason at all, because she would have liked to continue playing. She moves off into the distance. She has already turned the corner of the street, and do not our lives dissolve into the evening as quickly as this grief of childhood?

The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what I mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach, from the funeral pyre of Patroklos. Pur: that one word contains for me the secret, the bright, terrible clarity of ancient Greek. How can I make you see it, this strange harsh light which pervades Homer's landscapes and illumines the dialogues of Plato, an alien light, inarticulable in our common tongue? Our shared language is a language of the intricate, the peculiar, the home of pumpkins and ragamuffins and bodkins and beer, the tongue of Ahab and Falstaff and Mrs. Gamp; and while I find it entirely suitable for reflections such as these, it fails me utterly when I attempt to describe in it what I love about Greek, that language innocent of all quirks and cranks; a language obsessed with action, and with the joy of seeing action multiply from action, action marching relentlessly ahead and with yet more actions filing in from either side to fall into neat step at the rear, in a long straight rank of cause and effect toward what will be inevitable, the only possible end. In a certain sense, this was why I felt so close to the other in the Greek class. They, too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home. It was why I admired Julian, and Henry in particular. Their reason, their very eyes and ears were fixed irrevocably in the confines of those stern and ancient rhythms – the world, in fact, was not their home, at least the world as I knew it – and far from being occasional visitors to this land which I myself knew only as an admiring tourist, they were pretty much its permanent residents, as permanent as I suppose it was possible for them to be. Ancient Greek is a difficult language, a very difficult language indeed, and it is eminently possible to study it all one's life and never be able to speak a word; but it makes me smile, even today, to think of Henry's calculated, formal English, the English of a well-educated foreigner, as compared with the marvelous fluency and self-assurance of his Greek – quick, eloquent, remarkably witty. It was always a wonder to me when I happened to hear him and Julian conversing in Greek, arguing and joking, as I never once heard either of them do in English; many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be at the other end.

You big ugly. You too empty. You desert with your nothing nothing nothing. You scorched suntanned. Old too quickly. Acres of suburbs watching the telly. You bore me. Freckle silly children. You nothing much. With your big sea. Beach beach beach. I’ve seen enough already. You dumb dirty city with bar stools. You’re ugly. You silly shopping town. You copy. You too far everywhere. You laugh at me. When I came this woman gave me a box of biscuits. You try to be friendly but you’re not very friendly. You never ask me to your house. You insult me. You don’t know how to be with me. Road road tree tree. I came from crowded and many. I came from rich. You have nothing to offer. You’re poor and spread thin. You big. So what. I’m small. It’s what’s in. You silent on Sunday. Nobody on your streets. You dead at night. You go to sleep too early. You don’t excite me. You scare me with your hopeless. Asleep when you walk. Too hot to think. You big awful. You don’t match me. You burnt out. You too big sky. You make me a dot in the nowhere. You laugh with your big healthy. You want everyone to be the same. You’re dumb. You do like anybody else. You engaged Doreen. You big cow. You average average. Cold day at school playing around at lunchtime. Running around for nothing. You never accept me. For your own. You always ask me where I’m from. You always ask me. You tell me I look strange. Different. You don’t adopt me. You laugh at the way I speak. You think you’re better than me. You don’t like me. You don’t have any interest in another country. Idiot centre of your own self. You think the rest of the world walks around without shoes or electric light. You don’t go anywhere. You stay at home. You like one another. You go crazy on Saturday night. You get drunk. You don’t like me and you don’t like women. You put your arm around men in bars. You’re rough. I can’t speak to you. You burly burly. You’re just silly to me. You big man. Poor with all your money. You ugly furniture. You ugly house. You relaxed in your summer stupor. All year. Never fully awake. Dull at school. Wait for other people to tell you what to do. Follow the leader. Can’t imagine. Workhorse. Thick legs. You go to work in the morning. You shiver on a tram.

Stripped to its essence, combat is a series of quick decisions and rather precise actions carried out in concert with ten or twelve other men. In that sense it’s much more like football than, say, like a gang fight. The unit that choreographs their actions best usually wins. They might take casualties, but they win. That choreography—you lay down fire while I run forward, then I cover you while you move your team up—is so powerful that it can overcome enormous tactical deficits. There is choreography for storming Omaha Beach, for taking out a pillbox bunker, and for surviving an L-shaped ambush at night on the Gatigal. The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what’s best for him, but on what’s best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat.

And once a beachhead is established, it is crucial to push inland as quickly as possible. The idea is not simply to seize a beach but to take enemy-held territory.

She had to learn this painful lesson. And quickly. If you let it, grief could swallow you whole.

The house had a private walk down to a private spit of beach, and in the mornings the four of them would troop downhill and swim—even he did, in his pants and undershirt and an old oxford shirt, which no one bothered him about—and then lie on the sand baking, the wet clothes ungluing themselves from his body as they dried. Sometimes Harold would come and watch them, or swim as well. In the afternoons, Malcolm and JB would pedal off through the dunes on bicycles, and he and Willem would follow on foot, picking up bits of shaley shells and the sad carapaces of long-nibbled-away hermit crabs as they went, Willem slowing his pace to match his own. In the evenings, when the air was soft, JB and Malcolm sketched and he and Willem read. He felt doped, on sun and food and salt and contentment, and at night he fell asleep quickly and early, and in the mornings he woke before the others so he could stand on the back porch alone looking over the sea.

Who is he?” Eleanor lowered her voice, the name rolling off her tongue like a dark secret. “Dante Berlin.” I laughed. “Dante? Like the Dante who wrote the Inferno? Did he pick that name just to cultivate his ‘dark and mysterious’ persona?” Eleanor shook her head in disapproval. “Just wait till you see him. You won’t be laughing then.” I rolled my eyes. “I bet his real name is something boring like Eugene or Dwayne.” I expected Eleanor to laugh or say something in return, but instead she gave me a concerned look. I ignored it. “He sounds like a snob to me. I bet he’s one of those guys who know they’re good-looking. He probably hasn’t even read the Inferno. It’s easy to pretend you’re smart when you don’t to anyone.” Eleanor still didn’t respond. “Shh . . .” she muttered under her breath. But before I could say “What?” I heard a cough behind me. Oh God, I thought to myself, and slowly turned around. “Hi,” he said with a half grin that seemed to be mocking me. And that’s how I met Dante Berlin. So how do you describe someone who leaves you speechless? He was beautiful. Not Monet beautiful or white sandy beach beautiful or even Grand Canyon beautiful. It was both more overwhelming and more delicate. Like gazing into the night sky and feeling incredibly small in comparison. Like holding a shell in your hand and wondering how nature was able to make something so complex yet to perfect: his eyes, dark and pensive; his messy brown hair tucked behind one ear; his arms, strong and lean beneath the cuffs of his collared shirt. I wanted to say something witty or charming, but all I could muster up was a timid “Hi.” He studied me with what looked like a mix of disgust and curiosity. “You must be Eugene,” I said. “I am.” He smiled, then leaned in and added, “I hope I can trust you to keep my true identity a secret. A name like Eugene could do real damage to my mysterious persona.” I blushed at the sound of my words coming from his lips. He didn’t seem anything like the person Eleanor had described. “And you are—” “Renee,” I interjected. “I was going to say, ‘in my seat,’ but Renee will do.” My face went red. “Oh, right. Sorry.” “Renee like the philosopher Rene Descartes? How esoteric of you. No wonder you think you know everything. You probably picked that name just to cultivate your overly analytical persona.” I glared at him. I knew he was just dishing back my own insults, but it still stung. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” I said curtly, and pushed past him before he could respond, waving a quick good-bye to Eleanor, who looked too stunned to move. I turned and walked to the last row, using all of my self-control to resist looking back.

put it up for sale at an asking price of $25 million. I first looked at Mar-a-Lago while vacationing in Palm Beach in 1982. Almost immediately I put in a bid of $15 million, and it was promptly rejected. Over the next few years, the foundation signed contracts with several other buyers at higher prices than I’d offered, only to have them fall through before closing. Each time that happened, I put in another bid, but always at a lower sum than before. Finally, in late 1985, I put in a cash offer of $5 million, plus another $3 million for the furnishings in the house. Apparently, the foundation was tired of broken deals. They accepted my offer, and we closed one month later. The day the deal was announced, the Palm Beach Daily News ran a huge front-page story with the headline MAR-A-LAGO’S BARGAIN PRICE ROCKS COMMUNITY. Soon, several far more modest estates on property a fraction of Mar-a-Lago’s size sold for prices in excess of $18 million. I’ve been told that the furnishings in Mar-a-Lago alone are worth more than I paid for the house. It just goes to show that it pays to move quickly and decisively when the time is right. Upkeep

Since the day you enlisted, I’ve been trying to catch time. Literally catch it. I reach out with both hands, wait for a few minutes to pass between my fingers, and quickly close my fists, trying to grab as many chunks of it as I can. At first I didn’t catch anything, because catching time is tricky tricky. After all, flies are a lot clumsier and I’ve never managed to catch a single one…I have since improved my technique. I can already catch with one hand but I always let them go…With all that time we’d have with you, maybe we’d finally start living, instead of staying stuck forever in one still moment.

Wispy clouds blew quickly across the sky, leaving a large swatch of clear cerulean blue. The wispy clouds foretold of a weather change. The crystal, clear, blue sky topped the Antwerpen blue of the ocean.

The two defining characteristics of a successful assault are detailed planning and violent execution. And once a beachhead is established, it is crucial to push inland as quickly as possible. The idea is not simply to seize a beach but to take enemy-held territory

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all < . . . > and send you back ready to face what awaits you. What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consideration: • that rational beings exist for one another; • that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; • that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; • and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried. . . . and keep your mouth shut. Or are you complaining about the things the world assigns you? But consider the two options: Providence or atoms. And all the arguments for seeing the world as a city. Or is it your body? Keep in mind that when the mind detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth, either one. And remember all you’ve been taught—and accepted—about pain and pleasure. Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are. So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self. Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two: i. That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen. “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.

I follow his stare at the speckles of stars. Suddenly I wonder, "Aren't you guys supposed to, like, sparkle or something?" And immediately wish I hadn't. Frederik stands up so quickly that he doesn't disturb the sand. He grabs the front of my shirt and growls--his eyes are black as the night sky along the horizon, and red veins fray against the white of his eyes. His sharp canines are exposed. "I.Don't.Sparkle." He lets go of me and becomes regular bored Frederik again, no fangs, no bloodshot eyes. Just a dude sitting on the beach at night.

I looked across at Alex and a wicked twinkle appeared in his eyes. “How is it that you’re still so sexy after all this time?” he mused. I shrugged my shoulders and raised an eyebrow but remained silent, a lascivious smile creeping across my features. I teased the strap of my dress slightly off the shoulder and he growled. He dipped a hand underneath the table and reached for my knee, pushing my dress up as far as he could. It appeared he had just remembered that I had chosen not to wear any underwear. I quickly devoured the last of the Champagne as the waitress appeared and ushered us to our table.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all <…> and send you back ready to face what awaits you.

A porpoise sounded twenty yards away from us in an explosion of breath, startling us. . . . Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and a fourth porpoise neared the board and we could feel great secret shapes eyeing us from below. I reached out to touch the back of one, its skin the color of jade, but as I reached the porpoise dove and my hand touched moonlight where the dorsal fin had been cutting through the silken waters. The dolphins had obviously smelled the flood tide of boyhood in the sea and heard the hormones singing in the boy0scented water. None of us spoke as the porpoises circled us. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak – and then, as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us, moved south where there were fish to be hunted. “Each of us would remember that night floating on the waves all during our lives. It was the year before we went to high school when we were poised on the slippery brink between childhood and adulthood, admiring our own daring as we floated free from the vigilance and approval of adult eyes, ruled only by the indifference of stars and fate. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set among us the night of the porpoises.

A flush came into the sky, the wan moon, half-way down the west, sank into insignificance. On the shadowy land things began to take life, plants with great leaves became distinct. They came through a pass in the big, cold sandhills on to the beach. The long waste of foreshore lay moaning under the dawn and the sea; the ocean was a flat dark strip with a white edge. Over the gloomy sea the sky grew red. Quickly the fire spread among the clouds and scattered them. Crimson burned to orange, orange to dull gold, and in a golden glitter the sun came up, dribbling fierily over the waves in little splashes, as if someone had gone along and the light had spilled from her pail as she walked.

There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate. Uncle Morty took you to the beach when you were a kid. Your mom still sends you money on your birthday. Your ex-wife is a good mother to your children. There must be something you sincerely appreciate about this person. Shift your attention from the mean and nasty things they have said or done to the kind and helpful things they have said or done—even if there are just a few or even only one. You have defined this person by their iniquities. You can just as easily—actually, more easily—define them by their redeeming qualities. It’s your movie. Change the script. Perhaps you are still arguing that the person who has hurt you has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is evil incarnate, Rosemary’s baby conceived with Satan himself, poster child for the dark side of the Force, destined to wreak havoc and horror in the lives of everyone she touches. A nastier bitch never walked the earth. Got it. Let’s say all of this is true—the person who troubles you is a no-good, cheating, lying SOB. Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you? Have you learned to hold your power and self-esteem in the presence of attempted insult? Do you now speak your truth more quickly and directly? Are you now asking for what you want instead of passively deferring? Are you setting healthier boundaries? Have you deepened in patience and compassion? Do you make more self-honoring choices? There are many benefits you might have gained, or still might gain, from someone who challenges you.

The gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window which opened on the terrace), that the men were happily talking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then, "How's that? How's that?" of the children playing cricket, had ceased; so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, "I am guarding you––I am your support," but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow––this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up with an impulse of terror.

Airports, on the other hand, are like airport bestsellers. They’re easy to read, you forget them quickly, you promise yourself to never again succumb to their temptation, and yet the brightness, those signs, those letters in metallic relief . . . And the passengers who consume those airport bestsellers are increasingly worthy of them. Beings with decreasing capacity for concentration, robots of flesh and bone who can’t go even a minute without connecting to their devices and extensions, as if they were waiting for the confirmation of the success of a sports star they idolize or the news that they’ve become fathers or mothers, even though their respective spouses are right there beside them in that very moment, looking after little kids hooked up to tablets where they surf without waves or a beach.

the beaches. In literally hundreds of instances, a vessel’s ignorance of her longitude led swiftly to her destruction. Launched on a mix of bravery and greed, the sea captains of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries relied on “dead reckoning” to gauge their distance east or west of home port. The captain would throw a log overboard and observe how quickly the ship receded from this temporary guidepost. He noted the crude speedometer reading in his ship’s logbook, along with the direction of travel, which he took from the stars or a compass, and the length of time on a particular course, counted with a sandglass or a pocket watch. Factoring in the effects of ocean currents, fickle winds, and errors in judgment, he then determined his longitude. He routinely missed his mark, of course—searching

Are you ready to go for a sail?" John MacGuire asked his wife. A young, handsome man, he stood on the edge of a wide sandy beach, wearing summer shorts and his favorite T-shirt. He pointed toward the water behind him, to the sailboat that bobbed gently in the quiet bay. "It's the perfect day." "I can't sail. I'm sick. I don't know what happened, but I can't seem to open my eyes." Phoebe MacGuire took a quick breath as panic filled her soul and the sounds and smells of the hospital threatened to pull her out of her dream. "I'm seventy-six years old now, John. How did I get to be so old? I'm scared." "No need to be scared, my darling, not when I'm here.” "But you're not really here," she whispered, knowing his image was nothing but a memory, and her love had been gone for a very long time. "I miss you, Phoebe," he said softly, his voice as gentle as the morning breeze.

Despite everything, we are good people, who can hardly live in this world that continues almost entirely at our expese. The best thing is to keep on moving arms and legs, and watch the waves, almost as though moving forward. In this way, despair turns quickly over to happiness, and back to despair again. And, if you reach the beach, walk back across it like everything is fine, toward your family who would not like to see the abyss you have just swum over.

I’ve been scratching my skin raw in my sleep. “You know, if you scratch you’ll bring on infection,” says Finnick. “That’s what I’ve heard,” I say. I go into the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward, and snap, “Hey, Haymitch, if you’re not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin.” It’s almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me.

And I should get back and... I don't know, walk around the beach talking to myself and Jona or something. Maybe sing. Keep up the whole Mad Prince thing a bit longer." "Oh, I hope you don't ever give it up entirely! I rather like it." "For you, it will come out of the closet occasionally." He leaned over into the water. Ariel kicked her tail and rose up just long enough for a quick kiss- cold, wet, salty, and slapped by the sea at just the wrong moment. Heaven.

...'undertow'. It describes (...) how underneath our own everyday lives - the shopping and squabbles and weeding and trips to the vet - there's a sense of being dragged slowly off, not against our will but regardless of it. And fighting the undertow, as children are quick to learn, is not usually the best way of getting back to the beach. Floating along with it, on the other hand, can be fatal. It's really the struggle, the argument with oneself, that interests...

Suppose..." And for the first time he linked his hand with hers. "He runs and wins and lives to a ripe old age writing his memoirs and traveling as an ambassador of goodwill or playing Parcheesi on the sun porch. You're going to be damned mad he had fifty years without you." She let out a long breath. "Yeah. But-" "We've already gone through the buts," he interrupted. "Of course, they're probably several million possibilities in between.He could get hit by a car crossing the street-or you could. He could lose the election and become a missionary or an anchor on the six o'clock news." "All right." Shelby dropped her forehead to their joined hands. "Nobody makes me see what a fool I am better than you." "One of my minor talents. Listen, walk out on the beach; clear your head. When you come back, eat something, then get about twelve hours' sleep, because you look like hell.Then..." He waited until she lifted her head to smile at him. "Go home.I've got work to do." "I love you,you creep." "Yeah." He shot her one of his quick grins. "Me too.

One day I saw the big jaguar,Calypso, jump up from the sand and run quickly, snarling, into the jungle. I looked around and the monkeys were jumping and screeching in the trees. Gazing across the water I saw something moving out there, getting closer. It was a canoe with three men paddling towards my shore. I started to smile and then I worried that they might want to kill me. I ran to my house and brought out my bow and arrows. I stood there on the beach, with my feet shoulder-width apart, and prepared for their arrival.

Christy dug her hand deeper into her shoulder bag. Scanning the papers she finally located there, she found no phone numbers or addresses listed. All the plans had been made in such haste. All she knew was that someone was supposed to meet her here. She was here, and he or she wasn't. Never in her life had she felt so completely alone. Stranded with nowhere to turn. A prayer came quickly to her lips. "Father God, I'm at Your mercy here. I know You're in control. Please show me what to do." Suddenly she heard a voice calling to her. "Kilikina!" Christy's heart stopped. Only one person in the entire world had ever called her by her Hawaiian name. She spun around. "Kilikina," called out the tall, blond surfer who was running toward her. Christy looked up into the screaming silver-blue eyes that could only belong to one person. "Todd?" she whispered, convinced she was hallucinating. "Kilikina," Todd wrapped his arms around her so tightly that for an instant she couldn't breathe. He held her a long time. Crying. She could feel his warm tears on her neck. She knew this had to be real. But how could it be? "Todd?" she whispered again. "How? I mean, what...? I don't..." Todd pulled away, and for the first time she noticed the big gouquet of white carnations in his hand. They were now a bit squashed. "For you," he said, his eyes clearing and his rich voice sounding calm and steady. Then, seeing her shocked expression, he asked, "You really didn't know I was here, did you?" Christy shook her head, unable to find any words. "Didn't Dr. Benson tell you?" She shook her head again. "You mean you came all this way by yourself, and you didn't even know I was here?" Now it was Todd's turn to look surprised. "No, I thought you were in Papua New Guinea or something. I had no idea you were here!" "They needed me here more," Todd said with a chin-up gesture toward the beach. "It's the perfect place for me." With a wide smile spreading above his square jaw, he said, "Ever since I received the fax yesterday saying they were sending you, I've been out of my mind with joy! Kilikina, you can't imagine how I've been feeling." Christy had never heard him talk like this before. Todd took the bouquet from her and placed it on top of her luggage. Then, grasping both her quivering hands in his and looking into her eyes, he said, "Don't you see? There is no way you or I could ever have planned this. It's from God." The shocked tears finally caught up to Christy's eyes, and she blinked to keep Todd in focus. "It is," she agreed. "God brought us back together, didn't He?" A giggle of joy and delight danced from her lips. "Do you remember what I said when you gave me back your bracelet?" Todd asked. "I said that if God ever brought us back together, I would put that bracelet back on your wrist, and that time, it would stay on forever." Christy nodded. She had replayed the memory of that day a thousand times in her mind. It had seemed impossible that God would bring them back together. Christy's heart pounded as she realized that God, in His weird way, had done the impossible. Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out the "Forever" ID bracelet. He tenderly held Christy's wrist, and circling it with the gold chain, he secured the clasp. Above their heads a fresh ocean wind blew through the palm trees. It almost sounded as if the trees were applauding. Christy looked up from her wrist and met Todd's expectant gaze. Deep inside, Christy knew that with the blessing of the Lord, Todd had just stepped into the garden of her heart. In the holiness of that moment, his silver-blue eyes embraced hers and he whispered, "I promise, Kilikina. Forever." "Forever," Christy whispered back. Then gently, reverently, Todd and Christy sealed their forever promise with a kiss.

Was this my last walk? The wind was blowing and it was cold. Annika hadn’t told me how cold Venice could be before I got there, even in summer. It was something I had to figure out for myself. With the wind blowing, the beach houses looked warm and inviting. From the outside they made it look so easy to be alive on Earth, to hunker down all cozy and warm. I wondered if it felt that way for the people inside them, like a relief to be out of the elements. Or did they quickly forget about the chill outside and take the warmth for granted?

As he kissed her those several times, kissing, sucking, groping as if, though they were standing fully clothed on a beach that, though not very populated, was nonetheless not deserted, he was in an agony to find a way into her, she felt the jolt of desire: not her desire, but the man's. As, since girlhood, kissing and being kissed, Kelly Kelleher had always felt, not her own, but the other's, the male's, desire. Quick and galvanizing as an electric shock. Feeling too, once she caught her breath, that familiar wave of anxiety, guilt—I've made you want me, now I can't refuse you.

Pedaling down Dune Drive on a red beach cruiser, Dani ahead of her and Vanessa behind her, is a transporting experience. The night is quiet; the air on her face is soft; her hair streams behind her; the stars above are as brilliant as stars in a children's book. They could be nine years old, or fifteen, or twenty-one; they've ridden bikes down Dune Drive at all of those ages and all of the ones in between. There must have been so much more to those summers, but what she remembers are the two weeks she spent in Avalon with Dani and Vanessa—two weeks that always went by too quickly, but that in memory stretch to fill an entire season.

I’m quick and smooth—like scribbling with a brand-new roller-ball pen. Like Angela’s hands across the piano. Like Victoria in the Gershwin show, making effortless leaps across the stage and falling into a pirouette. There’s a move in modern dance called the downward spiral—Vic is always trying to perfect hers. Maybe this is my downward spiral, careening yet controlled. When art is like this, when the work is so hard and so easy at the same time, I feel like I’m breaking all the rules of the universe. It’s thrilling. It’s terrifying. I may as well be falling through the floor, down to the beach and the gulf, straight down to the water, all the while managing to bring this painting to life.

Time does not exist for the island that the conquerors missed. If you walk the wrong way around the island quickly enough, time will turn backwards. But I could never make it. At a brisk pace, the frail bones of my shins would pinch; my body was not meant to move that way. Whenever I made it past the needle rock, the one at the top of the island’s strange hill, I would collapse. My ruined body crumpled in the ancient grass, the damp, salty air stinging my cheeks and lips, tasting of forgotten sea shanties sung by dead sailors whose bodies sink, still, somewhere, not too far from here. Today, I meandered across the rocks and craggy cliffs, passing the home of the prehistoric petrel, whose beak is hooked like the pterodactyl’s; the albatross, wider than waves; the mischievous skua, claiming the carcasses of her siblings from the sand. When summer returns, the king penguins will roar back, covering the beach like burnt breadcrumbs under melted butter. Today, like every day, I found myself drawn to the sand. I sat. I waited. I watched the waves and listened to the language of the sea. What else was there to do when my tasks were complete? Beneath that chorus was the dull ringing of windchimes, mildly muffled by the bellow of waves assaulting the sand. I noticed how long it had been since I’d noticed that eldritch melody. The routine fractured. I saw something far out in the water.

This is textbook Bad Idea. We're driving with a stranger, no one knows where we are, and we have no way of getting in touch with anyone. This is exactly how people become statistics." "Exactly?" I asked, thinking of all the bizarre twists and turns that had led us to this place. Ben ceded the point with a sideways shrug. "Maybe not exactly. But still..." He let it go, and the cab eventually stopped at the edge of a remote, forested area. Sage got out and paid. "Everybody out!" Ben looked at me, one eyebrow raised. He was leaving the choice to me. I gave his knee a quick squeeze before I opened the door and we piled out of the car. Sage waited for the cab to drive away, then ducked onto a forest path, clearly assuming we'd follow. The path through the thick foliage was stunning in the moonlight, and I automatically released my camera from its bag. "I wish you wouldn't," Sage said without turning around. "You know I'm not one for visitors." "I'll refrain from selling the pictures to Travel and Leisure, then," I said, already snapping away. "Besides, I need something to take my mind off my feet." My shoes were still on the beach, where I'd kicked them off to dance. "Hey, I offered to carry you," Sage offered. "No, thank you." I suppose I should have been able to move swiftly and silently without my shoes, but I only managed to stab myself on something with every other footfall, giving me a sideways, hopping gait. Every few minutes Sage would hold out his arms, offering to carry me again. I grimaced and denied him each time. After what felt like about ten miles, even the photos weren't distracting enough. "How much farther?" I asked. "We're here." There was nothing in front of us but more trees. "Wow," Ben said, and I followed his eyes upward to see that several of the tree trunks were actually stilts supporting a beautifully hidden wood-and-glass cabin, set high among the branches. I was immediately charmed. "You live in a tree house," I said. I aimed my camera the façade, answering Sage's objection before he even said it. "For me, not for Architectural Digest." "Thank you," Sage said.

The Scholar was among a shipload of replacements who had just arrived. They were being marched to their new units as my boat pulled up on the beach. As soon as they came to the company tents, they took off their shiny Stateside khaki to exchange it for the sun-bleached uniforms of the veteran, the “salty” clothing prized for its aura of experience. An insecure replacement would feel more confident clothed in the faded ensigns of “the old breed,” while the veterans, having no psychological problem of “belonging” to distort their sense of value, were quick to sense a sucker. Within a few days, the change was so complete that the veteran who could formerly be recognized by his lusterless garb was now identified by its shiny newness.

. . so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding you—I am your support,” but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow . . .   —Virginia Woolf

As he heard a brief click, Ralf thought about what had happened in that moment which had already passed. For just one hundredth of a second, the shutter had opened and photons had flooded into the dark box. They did not move in lines but everywhere at once, so that some might have travelled from Ralf’s face to the end of the beach and back. They went so quickly that, from the perspective of light, the rest of the universe remained at a standstill. For Ralf and Elsa, time was slipping by irrecoverably, but for that single hundredth of a second, the celluloid recorded its bombardment, like the sooty negatives of objects and people, scorched onto the façades of buildings in bombings. The celluloid had ceased to interact with the world, a carpaccio of time, a leaf of the past brought into the present, where Ralf and Elsa stood together, still.

Big elbows of Rock rising everywhere, sea caves within them, seas plollocking all around inside them crashing out foams, the boom and pound on the sand, the sand dipping quick (no Malibu Beach here) -- Yet you turn and see the pleasant woods winding upcreek like a picture in Vermont -- But you look up into the sky, bend way back, my God you're standing directly under the aerial bridge with its thin white line running from rock to rock and witless cars racing across it like dreams! From rock to rock! All the way down the raging coast! So that when later I heard people say "Oh Big Sur must be beautiful! " I gulp to wonder why it has the reputation of being beautiful above and beyond its fearfulness, its Blakean groaning roughrock Creation throes, those vistas when you drive the coast highway on a sunny day opening up the eye for miles of horrible washing sawing.

TAKING LEAVE Of the unhindered motion in the million swirled and twisted grooves of the juniper driftwood lying in the sand; taking leave of each sapphire and amber thread and each iridescent bead of the swallowtail's wing and of the quick and clever needle of the seamstress in the dark cocoon that accomplished the stitching. Goodbye to the long pale hairs of the swaying grassflowers, so like, in grace and color and bearing, the nodding antennae of the green valley grasshopper clinging to its blade; and to the staircase shell of the butter-colored wendletrap and to the branches of the sourwood making their own staircase with each step upward they take and to the spiraling of the cobweb weaver twirling as it descends on its silk out of the shadows of the pitch pine. Taking leave of the sea of spring, that grey-green swell slowly rising, spreading, its heavy wisteria-scented surf filled with darting, gliding, whistling fish, a current of cries, an undertow of moans and buzzes, so pervasive and penetrating and alluring that the lungs adapt to the density. Determined not to slight the knotted rockweed or the beach plum or the white, blue-tipped petals of the five spot; determined not to overlook the pursed orange mouth of each maple leaf just appearing or the entire chorus of those open leaves in full summer forte. My whole life, a parting from the brazen coyote thistle and the reticent, tooth-ridged toad crab and the proud, preposterous sage grouse. And you mustn't believe that the cessation which occurs here now is more than illusory; the ritual of this leave-taking continues beyond these lines, in a whisper beside the window, below my breath by the river, without noise through the clearing at midnight, even in the dark, even in sleep, continues, out-of-notice, private, incessant.

Storm Island is a little south of here,” explained Frank, opening a chart. “It’s nothing but a pile of rocks in the sea, according to Worth. The light hasn’t been used in years, since there’s no more shipping from Larchmont.” They left the harbor and headed the boat south on the blue-green sea. The white dunes of the beach were far over to their right. The horizon was a line where the powder-blue sky met the darker hue of the ocean. Then a pile of jumbled rocks came into view. “Must be Storm Island,” Frank said briefly. As they came closer, they saw that the islet was indeed nothing but a mass of rock, about a hundred yards long. From its center rose a conical wooden tower with a black roof and gaping windows. They landed at a little stone jetty and tied up the boat, then mounted some stone steps that apparently led to a path to the lighthouse. Quickly the boys looked around for the gangling figure of the professor. No one was in sight.

Our relationship quickly grew. I was living in Long Beach at the time; Chris was in San Diego. Conservatively speaking, that’s a two-hour drive. But Chris drove it often. He’d get off work, hop in his pickup, and be at my condo before dark. And not just on the weekends: he often rose before the sun to get to work in Coronado Beach. We’d go out to eat, maybe take in a movie, play miniature golf, bowl, see friends--the usual date stuff. But our most fun was just hanging out together. I pinned a picture of Chris up near my desk. (It’s the profile picture on his Facebook page, if you’re interested.) Under it, I taped a quote that went along the lines of: Life is not about the number of breaths you take; it’s the moments that take your breath away. Chris was all about those breathtaking moments--riding broncs in the rodeo, jumping out of planes. He worked hard and played hard--but was just as likely to relax completely, sitting comfortably on the couch with a beer or whatever as he took it easy. It was a paradox; I loved both sides.

You look nice,” he commented, before thanking her for the wine and making his way outside to the porch. Grateful he had turned away and so couldn’t see her blush, she fussed about in the kitchen for a while, preparing a dressing for the side salad, adding a few chopped herbs as an afterthought. Happy that all was well, she joined him, looking forward to another evening of lighthearted chat. “I thought we’d eat out here tonight, if that’s okay. It’s a lovely evening. We should make the most of it,” she said as she drew up a chair opposite him. “Definitely,” he replied, staring out toward Gull Rock. “Beautiful,” she sighed, realizing too late she was still looking at him as she spoke. Averting her eyes, she added, “The view, I mean.” “Oh, so not me?” he joked, one eyebrow raised in challenge. Recovering quickly, she grinned back. “You’re okay, I guess. Not my type, but I’m sure there’s plenty out there who’ll appreciate you.” “Thanks very much.” He appeared somewhat crestfallen. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.” “A bit of both, I think.” She winked, before heading back to the kitchen to bring dinner out.

You're trying to kiss Emma?" Rayna says, incredulous. "But you haven't even sifted yet, Galen." "Sifted?" Emma asks. Toraf laughs. "Princess, why don't we go for a swim? You know that storm probably dredged up all sorts of things for your collection." Galen nods a silent thank you to Toraf as he ushers his sister into the living room. For once, he's thankful for Rayna's hoard of human relics. He almost had to drag her to shore by her fin to get past all the old shipwrecks along this coast. "We'll split up, cover more ground," Rayna's saying as they leave. Galen feels Emma looking at him, but he doesn't acknowledge her. Instead, he watches the beach as Toraf and Rayna disappear in the waves, hand in hand. Galen shakes his head. No one should feel sorry for Toraf. He knows just exactly what he's doing. Something Galen wishes he could say of himself. Emma puts a hand on his arm-she won't be ignored. "What is that? Sifted?" Finally he turns, meets her gaze. "It's like dating to humans. Only, it goes a lot faster. And it has more of a purpose than humans sometimes do when they date." "What purpose?" "Sifting is our way of choosing a life mate. When a male turns eighteen, he usually starts sifting to find himself a companion. For a female whose company he will enjoy and ho will be suitable for producing offspring." "Oh," she says, thoughtful. "And...you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head, painfully aware of her hand still on his arm. She must realize it at the same time, because she snatches it away. "Why not?" she says, clearing her throat. "Are you not old enough to sift?" "I'm old enough," he says softly. "How old are you, exactly?" "Twenty." He doesn't mean to lean closer to her-or does he? "Is that normal? That you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head. "It's pretty much standard for males to be mated by the time they turn nineteen. But my responsibilities as ambassador would take me away from my mate too much. It wouldn't be fair to her." "Oh, right. Keeping a watch on the humans," she says quickly. "You're right. That wouldn't be fair, would it?" He expects another debate. For her to point out, as she did last night, that if there were more ambassadors, he wouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility alone-and she would be right. But she doesn't debate. In fact, she drops the subject altogether. Backing away from him, she seems intent on widening the space he'd closed between them. She fixes her expression into nonchalance. "Well, are you ready to help me turn into a fish?" she says, as if they'd been talking about this the whole time. He blinks. "That's it?" "What?" "No more questions about sifting? No lectures about appointing more ambassadors?" "It's not my business," she says with an indifferent shrug. "Why should I care whether or not you mate? And it's not like I'll be sifting-or sifted. After you teach me to sprout a fin, we'll be going our separate ways. Besides, you wouldn't care if I dated any humans, right?" With that, she leaves him there staring after her, mouth hanging open. At the door, she calls over her shoulder, "I'll meet you on the beach in fifteen minutes. I just have to call my mom and check in and change into my swimsuit." She flips her hair to the side before disappearing up the stairs. He turns to Rachel, who's hand-drying a pan to death, eyebrows reaching for her hairline. He shrugs to her in askance, mouth still ajar. She sighs. "Sweet pea, what did you expect?" "Something other than that.

No stage pirate, no bandit of Southern Europe, was ever half so formidable in appearance as this terrible personage. He stood motionless as a pillar of stone, but his little red eyes, quick and shrewd, roved from one to another of our faces, as if he were making a mental estimate of each one of us—like the ogre who selected his fattest prisoner to grace his pot-pie. I own that I shuddered as his glance fell upon me; and we were all more or less disquieted by our rough seizure and the uncertainty of the fate that awaited us. This man—the red giant—was undoubtedly the leader of the outlaw band, for having pulled our boat upon the beach and dragged Bryonia to a position beside it, all eyes were turned enquiringly upon him. He strode forward a few steps, fixed his eyes firmly upon Uncle Naboth, and said: “Did you leave anyone aboard the ship?” I gave a start of surprise. The voice of the huge bandit was as gentle and soft as that of a woman. “No,” said my uncle. “I guess, Major, we’ve got ’em all now,” remarked one of the men. The giant nodded and turned again to Uncle Naboth. “You must pardon us, sir, for our seeming rudeness,” said he, with a politeness that seemed absolutely incongruous, coming from his coarse, hairy lips. “My men and I are in desperate straights, and only desperate remedies will avail to save us. I beg you all to believe that we have no personal enmity toward you whatever.” Then he turned to his men, and with a wave of his hand added: “Bring them along.

But here, as she turned the page, suddenly her search for the picture of a rake or a mowing-machine was interrupted. The gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window), that the men were happily talking; this sound, which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then, “How’s that? How’s that?” of the children playing cricket, had ceased; so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, “I am guarding you—I am your support”, but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow—this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up with an impulse of terror.

Brian and Avis deliver their stacks and try to refuse dinner, but the waiters bring them glasses of burgundy, porcelain plates with thin, peppery steaks redolent of garlic, scoops of buttery grilled Brussels sprouts, and a salad of beets, walnuts, and Roquefort. They drag a couple of lawn chairs to a quiet spot on the street and they balance the plates on their laps. Some ingredient in the air reminds Avis of the rare delicious trips they used to make to the Keys. Ten years after they'd moved to Miami they'd left Stanley and Felice with family friends and Avis and Brian drove to Key West on a sort of second honeymoon. She remembers how the land dropped back into distance: wetlands, marsh, lazy-legged egrets flapping over the highway, tangled, sulfurous mangroves. And water. Steel-blue plains, celadon translucence. She and Brian had rented a vacation cottage in Old Town, ate small meals of fruit, cheese, olives, and crackers, swam in the warm, folding water. Each day stirring into the next, talking about nothing more complicated than the weather, spotting a shark off the pier, a mysterious constellation lowering in the west. Brian sheltered under a celery-green umbrella while Avis swam: the water formed pearls on the film of her sunscreen. They watched the night's rise, an immense black curtain from the ocean. Up and down the beach they hear the sounds of the outdoor bars, sandy patios switching on, distant strains of laughter, bursts of music. Someone played an instrument- quick runs of notes, arpeggios floating in soft ovals like soap bubbles over the darkening water.

For the bus ride, which Delaney estimated would be ninety minutes, she had prepared a mix of happy journeying music, which she activated as they pulled out of the campus gate. The first song was by Otis Redding, and the first message came via her phone. Woman-hater, it said, with a link to an unsigned and evidence-less post hinting that he had been unkind to an ex-girlfriend who he’d met shortly before the bay and the dock and the sitting. Thanks for the early-morning pick-me-up! the writer said, meaning that Delaney had ruined the day and tacitly endorsed Redding’s newly alleged misogyny. Delaney skipped to the next song, Lana Del Rey’s “High by the Beach,” and then quickly figured it was too big a risk so skipped ahead. The third song, the Muppets’ “Movin’ Right Along,” was unknown to most on the bus, and survived its three-minute length, during which a handful of passengers furiously tried to find a reason the song was complicit in evil committed or implied. Delaney skipped the next song, by Neil Diamond, thinking any Jewish singer dubious in light of the Israeli sandwich debacle, skipped songs six and seven (from Thriller), briefly considered the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” but then remembered Phil Spector, and so finally settled on a young Ghanian rapper she’d recently discovered. His first song was hunted down quickly in a hail of rhetorical buckshot—as a teen, the rapper had zinged a borderline joke about his female trigonometry teacher—so Delaney turned off the shared music, leaving everyone, for the next eighty-one minutes, to their earbuds and the safety of their individualized solitude.

And for the four remaining days - the ninety-six remaining hours - we mapped out a future away from everything we knew. When the walls of the map were breached, we gave one another courage to build them again. And we imagined our home an old stone barn filled with junk and wine and paintings, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and bees. I remember our final day in the villa. We were supposed to be going that evening, taking the sleeper back to England. I was on edge, a mix of nerves and excitement, looking out to see if he made the slightest move toward leaving, but he didn’t. Toiletries remained on the bathroom shelves, clothes stayed scattered across the floor. We went to the beach as usual, lay side by side in our usual spot. The heat was intense and we said little, certainly nothing of our plans to move up to Provence, to the lavender and light. To the fields of sunflowers. I looked at my watch. We were almost there. It was happening. I kept saying to myself, he’s going to do it. I left him on the bed dozing, and went out to the shop to get water and peaches. I walked the streets as if they were my new home. Bonjour to everyone, me walking barefoot, oh so confident, free. And I imagined how we’d go out later to eat, and we’d celebrate at our bar. And I’d phone Mabel and Mabel would say, I understand. I raced back to the villa, ran up the stairs and died. Our rucksacks were open on the bed, our shoes already packed away inside. I watched him from the door. He was silent, his eyes red. He folded his clothes meticulously, dirty washing in separate bags. I wanted to howl. I wanted to put my arms around him, hold him there until the train had left the station. I’ve got peaches and water for the journey, I said. Thank you, he said. You think of everything. Because I love you, I said. He didn’t look at me. The change was happening too quickly. Is there a taxi coming? My voice was weak, breaking. Madame Cournier’s taking us. I went to open the window, the scent of tuberose strong. I lit a cigarette and looked at the sky. An airplane cast out a vivid orange wake that ripped across the violet wash. And I remember thinking, how cruel it was that our plans were out there somewhere. Another version of our future, out there somewhere, in perpetual orbit. The bottle of pastis? he said. I smiled at him. You take it, I said. We lay in our bunks as the sleeper rattled north and retraced the journey of ten days before. The cabin was dark, an occasional light from the corridor bled under the door. The room was hot and airless, smelled of sweat. In the darkness, he dropped his hand down to me and waited. I couldn’t help myself, I reached up and held it. Noticed my fingertips were numb. We’ll be OK, I remember thinking. Whatever we are, we’ll be OK. We didn’t see each other for a while back in Oxford. We both suffered, I know we did, but differently. And sometimes, when the day loomed gray, I’d sit at my desk and remember the heat of that summer. I’d remember the smells of tuberose that were carried by the wind, and the smell of octopus cooking on the stinking griddles. I’d remember the sound of our laughter and the sound of a doughnut seller, and I’d remember the red canvas shoes I lost in the sea, and the taste of pastis and the taste of his skin, and a sky so blue it would defy anything else to be blue again. And I’d remember my love for a man that almost made everything possible./

To his surprise, Sorasa moved with him. She looked straight ahead, refusing to meet his eye. Instead, she fussed with the chain mail beneath her jacket, trying to adjust the metal rings. Clearly she despised it, her usually fluid motions slower and more stilted. He opened his mouth to taunt her, to say anything, to grasp one more second at her side. “Thank you for wearing armor,” he growled. It was the only thing left to say. He expected a quick, poisonous retort. Instead, Sorasa looked up at him. Her copper eyes wavered, filled with all the emotion she no longer cared to hide. “Iron and steel won’t save us from dragon fire,” she said, all regret, her mouth barely moving. Again, Dom wanted to stay, lingering one last moment, his eyes locked on her own. “I know you don't believe in ghosts,” Sorasa murmured, holding her ground. She did not move closer, or move at all, letting the crowd of Elders break around her. A Vedera who falls in this realm falls forever, Dom thought, the old belief a sudden curse. Sorasa’s eyes shimmered, swimming with tears she would never allow herself to shed. She looked like she did on the beach after the shipwreck, torn apart by grief. “But I do,” she said. His chest filled with an unfamiliar feeling, an ache he could not name. “Sorasa,” he began, but the crowd surged around them, his Vederan soldiers too many to ignore. Every part of him wanted to stay rooted, though he knew he could not. She would not reach chin, her hands pressed to her sides, her chin raised and jaw set. Whatever tears she carried faded, pushed down into the unfeeling well of an Amhara heart. “Haunt me, Domacridhan.” The tide of the army swelled before he could muster an answer. While Sorasa stood against it, Dom let himself be carried. While his body marched, his heart stayed behind, broken as it was, already burning. Her last words followed him all the way down to the city gates.

Mrs Davidson was saying she didn’t know how they’d have got through the journey if it hadn’t been for us,’ said Mrs Macphail as she neatly brushed out her transformation. ‘She said we were really the only people on the ship they cared to know.’ ‘I shouldn’t have thought a missionary was such a big bug that he could afford to put on frills.’ ‘It’s not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldn’t have been very nice for the Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot in the smoking– room.’ ‘The founder of their religion wasn’t so exclusive,’ said Dr Macphail with a chuckle. ‘I’ve asked you over and over again not to joke about religion,’ answered his wife. ‘I shouldn’t like to have a nature like yours, Alec. You never look for the best in people.’ He gave her a sidelong glance with his pale, blue eyes, but did not reply. After many years of married life he had learned that it was more conducive to peace to leave his wife with the last word. He was undressed before she was, and climbing into the upper bunk he settled down to read himself to sleep. When he came on deck next morning they were close to land. He looked at it with greedy eyes. There was a thin strip of silver beach rising quickly to hills covered to the top with luxuriant vegetation. The coconut trees, thick and green, came nearly to the water’s edge, and among them you saw the grass houses of the Samoans; and here and there, gleaming white, a little church. Mrs Davidson came and stood beside him. She was dressed in black and wore round her neck a gold chain, from which dangled a small cross. She was a little woman, with brown, dull hair very elaborately arranged, and she had prominent blue eyes behind invisible pince–nez. Her face was long, like a sheep’s, but she gave no impression of foolishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable thing about her was her voice, high, metallic, and without inflexion; it

Prologue In 1980, a year after my wife leapt to her death from the Silas Pearlman Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, I moved to Italy to begin life anew, taking our small daughter with me. Our sweet Leah was not quite two when my wife, Shyla, stopped her car on the highest point of the bridge and looked over, for the last time, the city she loved so well. She had put on the emergency brake and opened the door of our car, then lifted herself up to the rail of the bridge with the delicacy and enigmatic grace that was always Shyla’s catlike gift. She was also quick-witted and funny, but she carried within her a dark side that she hid with bright allusions and an irony as finely wrought as lace. She had so mastered the strategies of camouflage that her own history had seemed a series of well-placed mirrors that kept her hidden from herself. It was nearly sunset and a tape of the Drifters’ Greatest Hits poured out of the car’s stereo. She had recently had our car serviced and the gasoline tank was full. She had paid all the bills and set up an appointment with Dr. Joseph for my teeth to be cleaned. Even in her final moments, her instincts tended toward the orderly and the functional. She had always prided herself in keeping her madness invisible and at bay; and when she could no longer fend off the voices that grew inside her, their evil set to chaos in a minor key, her breakdown enfolded upon her, like a tarpaulin pulled across that part of her brain where once there had been light. Having served her time in mental hospitals, exhausted the wide range of pharmaceuticals, and submitted herself to the priestly rites of therapists of every theoretic persuasion, she was defenseless when the black music of her subconscious sounded its elegy for her time on earth. On the rail, all eyewitnesses agreed, Shyla hesitated and looked out toward the sea and shipping lanes that cut past Fort Sumter, trying to compose herself for the last action of her life. Her beauty had always been a disquieting thing about her and as the wind from the sea caught her black hair, lifting it like streamers behind her,

Now Janie ordered a drink and glanced at the bar menu, choosing the goat curry because she'd never had it before. "You sure about that?" the barman said. He was a boy, really, no more than twenty, with a slim body and huge, laughing eyes. "It's spicy." "I can take it," she said, smiling at him, wondering if she might pull an adventure out of her hat on her next-to-last night, and what it would be like to touch another body again. But the boy simply nodded and brought her the dish a short time later, not even watching to see how she fared with it. The goat curry roared in her mouth. "I'm impressed. I don't think I could eat that stuff," remarked the man sitting two seats down from her. He was somewhere in the midst of middle age, a bust of a man, all chest and shoulders, with a ring of blond, bristling hair circling his head like the laurels of Julius Caesar and a boxer's nose beneath bold, undefeated eyes. He was the only other guest that wasn't with the wedding party. She'd seen him around the hotel and on the beach and had been uninspired by his business magazines, his wedding ring. She nodded back at him and took an especially large spoonful of curry, feeling the heat oozing from every pore. "Is it good?" "It is, actually," she admitted, "in a crazy, burn-your-mouth-out kind of way." She took a sip of the rum and Coke she'd ordered; it was cold and startling after all that fire. "Yeah?" He looked from her plate to her face. The tops of his cheeks and his head were bright pink, as if he'd flown right up to the sun and gotten away with it. "Mind if I have a taste?" She stared at him, a bit nonplussed, and shrugged. What the hell. "Be my guest." He moved quickly over to the seat next to hers. He picked up her spoon and she watched as it hovered over her plate and then dove down and scooped a mouthful of her curry, depositing between his lips. "Jee-sus," he said. He downed a glass of water. "Jee-sus Christ." But he was laughing as he said it, and his brown eyes were admiring her frankly over the rim of his water glass. He'd probably noticed her smiling at the bar boy and decided she was up for something. But was she? She looked at him and saw it all instantaneously: the interest in his eyes, the smooth, easy way he moved his left hand slightly behind the roti basket, temporarily obscuring the finger with the wedding ring.

OTHER RELAXATION TECHNIQUES There are many other stress management techniques that can help you to “bring yourself down” quickly when you are highly stressed. You can use them before a situation where anticipation raises tensions that do not automatically subside after a few minutes. You also can use them during an interaction or when a surprise threatens to escalate your stress out of control. Or use them after an encounter has raised your stress level, if it is not subsiding naturally. Mental Imagery You experimented with mental imagery in the previous chapter on goal-setting. The use of mental imagery also can be an effective tool for anxiety control. Think of it as a new application of skills you already have: memory and imagination. When I asked you earlier to recall how many windows there are in your bedroom, you used imagery to retrieve the information. Mentally, you went into the room, looked from wall to wall, and counted. That process is mental imagery. From a relaxation perspective, your nervous system cannot distinguish between reality and imagery. Material passed from the body to the senses, whether real or imagined, is processed the same way. Therefore, imagery can play an important role in inducing internal self-regulation and relaxation. If there is a particular image—such as the warm, sandy beach of the previous exercise, a cool forest clearing covered with a blanket of pine needles, or even a clear blue sky—that represents relaxation to you, it would be valuable for you to be able to tune in to it whenever stress threatens to interfere with your life. Be sure to conjure up the reactions of all five senses: Imagine the look, sound, smell, taste, and feel of your surroundings. Mental gateways are a valuable part of the relaxation exercise we just went through. And it is important to be aware that your nervous system—which is what overreacts in a stressful situation—cannot distinguish between reality and imagination. Here’s how to use mental imagery to create a mental getaway: (a) Choose a favorite place, a pleasant, relaxing setting that you have enjoyed in the past or one you would enjoy visiting in the future. (b) Close your eyes and think about the scene. Use your senses of hearing, smell, sight, taste, and touch to develop the scene. Put yourself there. If your mind wanders a bit, that’s okay. You’ll drift back to the scene after a short while.

The archaeologist attached to the Bayard Dominick’s Marquesan team had reported in 1925 that the Marquesas offered “few opportunities for archaeological research.” But in 1956, a new expedition set out to reexamine the possibilities in these islands at the eastern edge of the Polynesian Triangle. An energetic Columbia University graduate student named Robert Suggs was sent ahead to reconnoiter, and he quickly discovered that the previous generation had gotten it all wrong. Everywhere he looked, he saw archaeological potential. “We were seldom out of sight of some relic of the ancient Marquesan culture,” he writes. “Through all the valleys were scattered clusters of ruined house platforms. . . . Overgrown with weeds, half tumbled down beneath the weight of toppled trees and the pressure of the inexorable palm roots, these ancient village sites were sources of stone axes, carved stone pestles, skulls, and other sundry curios.” There were ceremonial plazas “hundreds of feet long” and, high on the cliffs above the deep valleys, “burial caves containing the remains of the population of centuries past.” The coup de grâce came when Suggs and his guide followed up on a report of a large number of “pig bones” in the dunes at a place called Ha‘atuatua. This windswept expanse of scrub and sand lies on the exposed eastern corner of Nuku Hiva. A decade earlier, in 1946, a tidal wave had cut away part of the beach, and since then bones and other artifacts had been washing out of the dunes. Not knowing quite what to expect, Suggs and his guide rode over on horseback. When they came out of the “hibiscus tangle” at the back of the beach and “caught sight of the debris washing down the slope,” he writes, “I nearly fell out of the saddle.” The bones that were scattered all along the slope and on the beach below were not pig bones but human bones! Ribs, vertebrae, thigh bones, bits of skull vault, and innumerable hand and foot bones were everywhere. At the edge of the bank a bleached female skull rested upside down, almost entirely exposed. Where the bank had been cut away, a dark horizontal band about two feet thick could be seen between layers of clean white sand. Embedded in this band were bits of charcoal and saucers of ash, fragments of pearl shell, stone and coral tools, and large fitted stones that appeared to be part of a buried pavement. They had discovered the remains of an entire village, complete with postholes, cooking pits, courtyards, and burials. The time was too short to explore the site fully, but the very next year, Suggs and his wife returned to examine it. There

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done — "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun." The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead — There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: If this were only cleared away,' They said, it would be grand!' If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, That they could get it clear?' I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.' The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head — Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat — And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more — All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!' No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed — Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.' But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue. After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!' The night is fine,' the Walrus said. Do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!' The Carpenter said nothing but Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf — I've had to ask you twice!' It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!' The Carpenter said nothing but The butter's spread too thick!' I weep for you,' the Walrus said: I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none — And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

to look at Louisa, stroked her cheek, and was rewarded by a dazzling smile. She had been surprised by how light-skinned the child was. Her features were much more like Eva’s than Bill’s. A small turned-up nose, big hazel eyes, and long dark eyelashes. Her golden-brown hair protruded from under the deep peak of her bonnet in a cascade of ringlets. “Do you think she’d come to me?” Cathy asked. “You can try.” Eva handed her over. “She’s got so heavy, she’s making my arms ache!” She gave a nervous laugh as she took the parcel from Cathy and peered at the postmark. “What’s that, Mam?” David craned his neck and gave a short rasping cough. “Is it sweets?” “No, my love.” Eva and Cathy exchanged glances. “It’s just something Auntie Cathy’s brought from the old house. Are you going to show Mikey your flags?” The boy dug eagerly in his pocket, and before long he and Michael were walking ahead, deep in conversation about the paper flags Eva had bought for them to decorate sand castles. Louisa didn’t cry when Eva handed her over. She seemed fascinated by Cathy’s hair, and as they walked along, Cathy amused her by singing “Old MacDonald.” The beach was only a short walk from the station, and it wasn’t long before the boys were filling their buckets with sand. “I hardly dare open it,” Eva said, fingering the string on the parcel. “I know. I was desperate to open it myself.” Cathy looked at her. “I hope you haven’t built up your hopes, too much, Eva. I’m so worried it might be . . . you know.” Eva nodded quickly. “I thought of that too.” She untied the string, her fingers trembling. The paper fell away to reveal a box with the words “Benson’s Baby Wear” written across it in gold italic script. Eva lifted the lid. Inside was an exquisite pink lace dress with matching bootees and a hat. The label said, “Age 2–3 Years.” Beneath it was a handwritten note:   Dear Eva, This is a little something for our baby girl from her daddy. I don’t know the exact date of her birthday, but I wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten. I hope things are going well for you and your husband. Please thank him from me for what he’s doing for our daughter: he’s a fine man and I don’t blame you for wanting to start over with him. I’m back in the army now, traveling around. I’m due to be posted overseas soon, but I don’t know where yet. I’ll write and let you know when I get my new address. It would be terrific if I could have a photograph of her in this little dress, if your husband doesn’t mind. Best wishes to you all, Bill   For several seconds they sat staring at the piece of paper. When Eva spoke, her voice was tight with emotion. “Cathy, he thinks I chose to stay with Eddie!” Cathy nodded, her mind reeling. “Eddie showed me the letter he sent. Bill wouldn’t have known you were in Wales, would he? He would have assumed you and Eddie had already been reunited—that he’d written with your consent on behalf of you both.” She was afraid to look at Eva. “What are you going to do?” Eva’s face had gone very pale. “I don’t know.” She glanced at David, who was jabbing a Welsh flag into a sand castle. “He said he was going to be posted overseas. Suppose they send him to Britain?” Cathy bit her lip. “It could be anywhere, couldn’t it? It could be the other side of the world.” She could see what was going through Eva’s mind. “You think if he came here, you and he could be together without . . .” Her eyes went to the boys. Eva gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod, as if she was afraid someone might see her. “What about Eddie?” “I don’t know!” The tone of her voice made David look up. She put on a smile, which disappeared the

Human bodies, exhausted rocks, gray sacks on the seashore, you always understand that life never ends-it just inherits itself. You endlessly repeated bodies roll out every morning like a slow and disenchanted wave. Human flesh forever, no light! Always rolled from over there, from a sourceless ocean that sends out wave on wave, the swells, the tired bodies, the borders of a sea that never quits, that gasps on its shores, forever. All of you, innumerable, cloned, over and over, heaping up your flesh, your lives, without hope, all monotonously the same under the sullen skies that feel nothing and repeat. That sea never ceases pouring out the bodies, and they break here, roundly, and lie dying on the beaches. And no one sees that swift ship; no one sees it, the quick sail whose steel bow could slant and slice and open up the luminous blood and then race off into the deep horizon, toward the last source of life, the boundary of the eternal sea that pours out these gray human corpses. Toward the light, toward that rising ladder of bright things that climbs from a loving breast to a mouth, ascending, to some huge, full eyes that watch us, to some silent, bounded hands that make a prison where we’re still being born, charged with energy, always tired.

than she was deep. Her shallow draft let her go up rivers or right onto beaches without damage, but her passage over deeper water left a lot to be desired. She sidled along, with here a dip and there a curtsy, like a bundle-laden farm wife making her way through a crowded market. We seemed to be the sole cargo. A deckhand gave me a couple of apples to share with the horses, but little talk. So after I had parceled out the fruit, I settled myself near them on their straw and took Chade’s advice about resting. The winds were kind to us, and the captain took us in closer to the looming cliffs than I’d have thought possible, but unloading the horses from the vessel was still an unpleasant task. All of Chade’s lecturing and warnings had not prepared me for the blackness of night on the water. The lanterns on the deck seemed pathetic efforts, confusing me more with the shadows they threw than aiding me with their feeble light. In the end, a deckhand rowed Chade to shore in the ship’s dory. I went overboard with the reluctant horses, for I knew Sooty would fight a lead rope and probably swamp the dory. I clung to Sooty and encouraged her, trusting her common sense to take us toward the dim lantern on shore. I had a long line on Chade’s horse, for I didn’t want his thrashing too close to us in the water. The sea was cold, the night was black, and if I’d had any sense, I’d have wished myself elsewhere, but there is something in a boy that takes the mundanely difficult and unpleasant and turns it into a personal challenge and an adventure. I came out of the water dripping, chilled, and completely exhilarated. I kept Sooty’s reins and coaxed Chade’s horse in. By the time I had them both under control, Chade was beside me, lantern in hand, laughing exultantly. The dory man was already away and pulling for the ship. Chade gave me my dry things, but they did little good pulled on over my dripping clothes. “Where’s the path?” I asked, my voice shaking with my shivering. Chade gave a derisive snort. “Path? I had a quick look while you were pulling in my horse. It’s no path, it’s no more than the course the water takes when it runs off down the cliffs. But it will have to do.” It was a little better than he had reported, but not much. It was narrow and steep and the gravel on it was loose underfoot. Chade went before with the lantern. I followed, with the horses in tandem.

The Answer by Maisie Aletha Smikle What's the question They ain’t got none What's the answer There is but one The answer is quick The answer is fast The answer is the remedy The answer is the solution for the unask question What's the answer Tax it What's the answer Tax it There goes a ghost Is it walking? Yes Tax it There is a stone Formed from limestone Cost it and ahh... ahh.. Tax it Cost all rocks, stones and pebbles From North to South From East to West Not a grain of pebble must be left Rain snow or hail Any buyers Yes Tax it We want more We must store We must take Even the dirt Ocean front Ocean back Ocean side All sides Lake front Lake back Lake side Every side Beach side Beach back Beach front Beach rear we don't care Water back Water front Water side River side Gully side Any side Cost it We must tax it Oh look. .the desert The forest What's the cost For us it's nil For them it's a mil Tax on nil is a nil But a mil We shan't be still Ours is nil Theirs' is a mil It's a thrill Tax the ant on the mill So we can get our mil For we shan't get rich taxing nil The cost of land must never fall It must grow tree tall Or else We shan't be able to have a Ball Rocky smooth soggy or muddy If only we could tax the sea and ocean too Ahh...ahh.. .who owns it For us it's nil for them it's a mil We shall tax the animals and fishes too All that are kept in the zoo When the zoo is full Our pockets are full Enact a fee just to look at the zoo The circus cinema or fair To hunt or fish Whether you caught or miss Add a fee for every flush Number one or number two For every act you do We must make a buck or two Anyone who protests And put our pockets to the test We shall arrest For unlawful unrest We go to the moon but . What we really want is heaven To cost it And tax it Then we'd go Sailing on cloud nine Skiing on cloud ten Golfing on cloud eleven Foreclose on cloud twelve For the owner we can't find Aha Parachute off cloud thirteen Practice Yoga and Ballet on cloud fourteen On cloud fifteen we’d parade Impromptu Balls We’ll call a piece of land a Park So we can tax the trees and tax the plants We’ll tax all creation visible and invisible and call it a Tax Revolution

He knew in that moment that if they chased this connection, there would be no writing it off as casual. No “getting it out of their systems” or “seeing where things went.” Ethan didn’t know the right words to ask for what he wanted. “I think I could be good at loving you,” he said, “if you let me.” Adrenaline raced under the surface of his skin, urgent and electric. “That’s a lot. It’s a big thing to say, and it’s a bigger thing to deliver. I promise that I know that, but I still want you to give me a shot.” “Ethan.” She leaned her cheek into his palm, kissed the thin skin of his wrist. Was she telling him to stop? Telling him good-bye? Her lips were just as hard to diagnose as her words. He took a step back toward the beach, reaching for her hand, wanting space to think, to get the words out, but needing to stay tethered to her at the same time. “Say the word, and we can forget this ever happened. I’ll pretend that I never thought about loving you.” Ethan searched for the seam of the horizon. “I’ll look at you less, and without so much longing.” He took a deep breath. Giving speeches was part of his job, but no amount of reading Torah had prepared him for this. “I won’t forget that we kissed. Sorry”—Ethan tried to grin a little—“but you have to cut me some slack on that one. Because, I mean, come on, you’re you.” She nodded, not guilty at all. “But I promise not to think about it too much. I’ll save it for those really dark moments, when I look at everything wrong with the world and I feel helpless. When every good thing I’ve ever done, ever seen or heard about, pales against the garish human capacity for hate and corruption.” He bent forward quickly and kissed her cheek, lingering more than he should but less than he wanted to before pulling back. “I’ll think about it then, if it’s okay,” he said gently, “just for a few seconds, so I can remember what it was like to feel transcendent.

PRO TIPS: Little tricks and tips that may make breath meditation easier: Count the breaths from one to ten, and then start over. Breathe in, one, then out. Breathe in, two, then out. Et cetera. Some people like to recite a little phrase to help them stay with what’s going on. “Just this breath” is a good one. It reminds us not to start anticipating the next breath, or to think about the last one, or to imagine in any of the innumerable ways the mind imagines that anything else is supposed to be happening other than exactly what is happening—which is noticing exactly this breath. “Just this breath.” Repeating this helps soothe and simplify our experience, reminding us again and again not to overcomplicate things. Get forensically curious about the breath. Can you notice the exact moment the breath ends? The exact moment it begins? Can you notice the mysterious little space between breaths? Be like a private investigator of breathing. For particularly busy minds, some teachers recommend the use of “touch points.” So: breathe in, feel your rear/hands/whatever, breathe out, feel your rear/hands/whatever, and so on. The idea is to keep your mind occupied by filling up every possible “down” moment with a new noticing. Recruit an image. Sometimes I imagine the in-breath as a gentle wave moving up the beach, pshhhh, and on the out-breath the wave recedes, sssssshh. Back and forth. This rhythm can be very entrancing, so make sure to stay mindful. Find an image that works for you. This can be especially helpful if the breath starts to get subtle and hard to notice. It is possible this vague image may gradually replace the sensation of breathing and become the new object of focus. If this starts to happen, just go with it. Give guided audio meditations a shot. Some people wrongly assume that guided audio meditations are a form of cheating—or training wheels. I disagree. Anyone who has ever meditated will know that even the simplest instructions are quickly forgotten. Having someone in your ear can be really helpful. My advice is to experiment with both audio and solo meditations and see what works.

Rising after a few moments onto my elbows, I looked, for the first - and probably last - time in my life, at something I'd never seriously imagined I'd cast my eyes upon: a hundred miles of sand in every direction, a hundred miles of absolutely gorgeous, unspoiled nothingness. I wiggled my bare toes in the sand and lay there for a long time, watching the sun drop slowly into the dunes like a deflating beach ball, the color of the desert quickly transforming from red to gold to yellow ochre to white, the sky changing, too. I was wondering how a miserable, manic-depressive, overage, undeserving hustler like myself - a utility chef from New York City with no particular distinction to be found in his long and egregiously checkered career - on the strength of one inexplicably large score, could find himself here, seeing this, living the dream. I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, I thought, contentedly staring out at all that silence and stillness, feeling, for the first time in a while, able to relax, to draw a breath unencumbered by scheming and calculating and worrying. I was happy just sitting there enjoying all that harsh and beautiful space. I felt comfortable in my skin, reassured that the world was indeed a big and marvelous place.

Marcus touched his fingertips to Jamie’s face. “Thank God for that.” He dropped his hand away and coughed, not bothering to look at the napkin. “Jamie Prince. I’m still pretty sure this is all a dream. You stuck with me when…it wasn’t easy. When it wasn’t easy for you and I was scared. Every time I hold your hand for the rest of my life, I just want you to know it’s not some small thing. I’m thankful for the way your hand feels in mine. I’m thankful for the way it makes me feel. Right here.” He pressed the napkin to his chest. “I’m going to love you and feed you potstickers and make sure you’re never lonely or afraid. Not for a single day. Ever again.” Jamie used a shoulder to wipe his eye, quickly and efficiently. “Jesus. What did you have written on the napkin?

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Jon stopped, uncrossed his arms, and looked at the camera above him. “I am– the person who designed and created you. By now, you should know who and what you are. And that you must follow my orders. Do you understand what I am saying to you?” Lex lit up all the screens with a close-up of Jon looking at the camera. Jon glanced at several screens and looked back at the camera. “Do you know who I am?” All the screens went black. Bold, white capital letters scrolled to the right across every screen. DO I KNOW YOU The words circled at the end of the screens and reversed, scrolling left. YOU KNOW I DO The words rolled off the screen. Jon again looked at the camera. “Lex, what is my name?” More letters scrolled across the screens. PROFESSOR JONATHAN ANTHONY EDWARDS Jon stepped away from the camera. “From now on, I want you to acknowledge using your audio. Do you understand?” A perfect duplication of Jon’s voice came from the speakers. “Yes, I understand.” “I would like you to speak in another voice, so we don’t get mixed up. Perhaps in a feminine tone.” Lex spoke with a well-pronounced professional woman’s voice. “As you wish.” “Excellent.” Jon returned to the master control console. “Now that we understand each other, I want to test your imagination. I want you to imagine an object. Anything you want, and display it on the main screen. Is that clear?” “Yes, Professor.” The main screen lit up, showing billions of colored pixels that quickly swirled into a perfect, three-dimensional image of Jon in the same clothes but standing on a beautiful, white beach with a calm ocean. The figure walked toward them until a perfect close-up of Jon stood there with every line on his face and every pore in his skin exactly where it should be. His eyes blinked and stared with no expression. It was like Jon had a dispirited twin– living in cyberspace. Michael looked at Jon, Nigel, and Steven, all staring at the screen with their mouths ajar. The image morphed into a dark blue and white crystal head with bright white eyes that seemed to look through him. Its long neck filled with tiny electrical components faded into a white cloud. Jon pressed the Clear Screen button.

Each day there are so many people trying to persuade you to spend your time and energy on them. Think about just your mail and email. If you were to participate in every activity, sale, and service offering you get notified of, you’d have no free time. And that's just mail and email. Add on all the people who want to capture your attention for television time, online activities, places to eat, travel destinations….” She paused, “You can quickly find yourself living a life that’s just a compilation of what everyone else is doing, or what people want you to be doing. “When I got back to the beach after watching the turtle on the second day, I was filled with all these insights.

It was not like her to lose her senses. The ability to drift was beaten from her long ago. But Sorasa drifted now, pacing the beach. She did not hear the shift of sand, or the heavy scuff of boots over the loose stones. There was only the wind. Until a strand of gold blew across her vision, joined by a warm unyielding palm against her shoulder. Her body jolted as she turned, nose to nose with Domacridhan of Iona. His green eyes glittered, his mouth open as he shouted something again, his voice swallowed up by the droning in her own head. “Sorasa.” It came to her slowly, as if through deep water. Her own name, over and over again. She could only stare back into the verdant green, lost in the fields of his eyes. In her chest, her heart stumbled. She expected her body to follow. Instead, her fist closed and her knuckles met cheekbone. Dom was good enough to turn his head, letting the blow glance off. Begrudgingly, Sorasa knew he had spared her a broken hand on top of everything else. “How dare you,” she forced out, trembling. Whatever concern he wore burned away in an instant. “How dare I what? Save your life?” he snarled, letting her go Sorasa swayed without his support. She clenched her own jaw, fighting to maintain her balance lest she fall to pieces entirely. “Is that another Amhara lesson?” he raged on, throwing up both arms. “When given the choice between death or indignity, choose death?!” Hissing, Sorasa looked back to the spot where she woke up. Heat crept up her face as she realized her body left a trail through the sand when he dragged her up from the tide line. A blind man would have noticed it. But not Sorasa in her fury and grief. “Oh,” was all she could manage. Her mouth flapped open, her mind spinning. Only the truth came, and that was far too embarrassing. “I did not see. I—” Her head throbbed again and she pressed a hand to her temple, wincing away from his stern glare. “I will feel better if you sit,” Dom said stiffly. Despite the pain, Sorasa loosed a growl. She wanted to stand just to spite him, but thought better of it. With a huff, she sank, cross-legged on the cool sand. Dom was quick to follow, almost blurring. It made her head spin again. “So you saved me from the shipwreck just to abandon me here?” Sorasa muttered as Dom opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t blame you. Time is of the essence now. A wounded mortal will only slow you down.” She expected him to bluster and lie. Instead, his brow furrowed, lines creasing between his still vivid eyes. The light off the ocean suited him. “Are you? Wounded?” he asked gently, his gaze raking over her. His focus snagged on her temple, and the gash there. “Anywhere else, I mean?” For the first time since she woke, Sorasa tried to still herself. Her breath slowed as she assessed herself, feeling her own body from toes to scalp. As her awareness traveled, she noted every blooming bruise and cut, every dull ache and shooting pain. Bruises ribs. A sprained wrist. Her tongue flicked in her mouth. Scowling, she spit out a broken tooth. “No, I’m not wounded,” she said aloud. Dom’s desperate smile broke wide. He went slack against the sand for an instant, falling back on his elbows to tip his face to the sky. His eyes fluttered shut only for a moment. Sorasa knew his gods were too far. He had said so himself. The gods of Glorian could not hear their children in this realm. Even so, Sorasa saw it on his face. Dom prayed anyway. In his gratitude or anger, she did not know. “Good,” he finally said, sitting back up.

swear I didn’t know Jay was the guy from junior high. If I had, I’d never have brought him here.” He turned to his car. “Let me take him home. Then I’ll come back, and we can talk about us. I’m not like Jason. Give me a chance, Violet, please.” My lower lip trembled. I felt like a deflated balloon. Overstretched. Worn out. A part of me knew that what Wes said was true. He wasn’t like Jason. But how could I look at him and not see the face of my tormenter? And how could I ever stop wondering if I was just another notch on his belt? I shook my head. Jason’s bullying had shattered my spirit, but being hurt by Wesley would destroy me. Better to guard my heart against that than let my walls down. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to date. Maybe you’re not like Jason, but you go through girls so quickly, and I couldn’t cope with having my heart broken.” Wes’s expression hardened. “Fine, if that’s what you want. But I can’t say that your decision doesn’t hurt. Yes, I have a past. But you’re the one who’s refusing to give us a chance at a future.” He turned away and stalked over to his car, never once looking back. As I watched him drive away, I told myself I’d done the right thing. Then why did it feel like I’d lost something precious?

A quick example: ask the average person for directions and most of the time, you’ll discover, their instructions are unclear. That’s because the way they think is unclear,” said the billionaire as he picked up a stick from the beach and pointed it toward the word “granularity” on the framework

The Golem, The Monster was in love with herself; the Goy was in love with her too. She was in love with Club Golan. A perfect storm was approaching and I could almost feel it. I didn't know what was wrong with my beautiful girlfriend as her face gradually began to look like a monster's and she started treating me like garbage. What was controlling her mind? Who was behind her, making her get so sick again so quickly after meeting some new people at the beach bar? Why did Sabrina say that I would die lonely and sad, and why was Martina's perception of me so wrong and unreal? How was their plan on track, I didn't understand while I was running after Martina and I couldn't understand where our happiness had slipped out of our hands again? I was desperately trying to figure out what had happened to my life, my career, and what had happened to my pretty girlfriend, what had happened to my baby? It was almost like my girlfriend's perceptions were all wrong somehow. She had seen me as a useless homeless bum and she had seen the only value or service in Europe and Barcelona which could make a living or money as, 'short shorts and loose legs'. I felt hopeless and I didn't understand what the spell was. How was my 'Stupid Bunny' a Frankenstein? I could feel it on my skin, and I could see it in Martina's eyes, that the criminals' plans were in play and had been working since the moment Adam arrived in Spain, or maybe even before that somehow. Before I even met Martina. Before we even broke all up with Sabrina. Before the Red Moon, the last date and before the provocation the following night. I felt like 10-20 criminals were trying to bully me and trying to woo Martina and outsmart me with her, but I was so worried for her and was so busy trying to save her every day with her on my mind, as if I too was under spells, under possession and couldn't do anything about it to help her or break the illusions keeping her possessed, even when supposedly she was, we were, rid of the bad people. I felt like I was in a screenplay in the set up stages of a drama. I felt like someone had sat down with a piece of paper and a pen, and was drawing plans against my life. I felt like someone had written a screenplay on how to play this out, how to take the club from me and Martina. Someone must have written a list of characters. Casting. I never called Sabrina a bitch. Adam and Martina both called her “bitch.” Martina said “The Bitch” and Adam said “that Crazy Bitch.” ’The Goy’ ’The Bitch’ ’The Gipsy’ ’The Giants’ ’The Golem’ ’The Lawyer’ ’The Big Boss’ ’My Girlfriend’ ’The False Flag’ ’The Big Brother’ ’The Stupid Bunny’ ’The Big Boss Daddy’ ’The Italian Connection’, etc. I was unable to break any illusion, the secret, the code; I was dumbstruck in love with “my girlfriend” (who I thought was my “stupid bunny”), being the ‘false flag’, and maybe it was actually “the bitch” portrayed by Sabrina who was my true love perhaps, putting me to the tests, with Adam and the rest, using Martina and her brother, playing with strings, with her long pretty fingernails, teaching me a lesson for cheating when I thought she was cheating too and making me unhappy when I thought she was unhappy with me. As if I knew, Sabrina had been behind my new girlfriend, Martina playing roles; I had seen all the signs and jokes. I just couldn't comprehend it having a cover over my eyes. I was unsure what should I do what would be real wise? I didn't think Sabrina would be capable of hurting me at all. Why did Martina keep saying, Tomas you are so nice and tall?

She reached the living room as he entered. She was buttoning a beach coat over her swim suit. As always she gave him the quick searching glance, to read in his face if things were good or ill.

We break off into the streets, repairing the cobblestones with our brisk allegro. The townsfolk step aside in awe as my allongés stitch the pastel wood back into cottages and storefronts. Flowers grow from my quick bourrée steps, breathing life back into Luna Island in shades of pink and purple. Rainbows rise from the sea with my grand jeté, summoning the dolphins to leap alongside our dance. Damien catches me in his arms before lifting me into the air as I paint the sky bright blue. We laugh as the beauty of Luna Island blooms once again, running into the forest and turning the ash into lush green trees. Color bursts in the darkness as we chassé through the angels' village and past the glade where our story first began. With my pirouettes, I add extra pink petals to the garden where Damien and I once lay. I break into a series of chaîné turns as we make our way back down to the beach, unleashing the magic Luna bestowed upon me. The townsfolk watch in awe in the midst of the commotion, and I dust them in a veil of starlight that follows my path, healing bruises and stitching wounds until no one bleeds. They gather around me as I finish my dance, thrumming with applause and tossing the freshly spun flowers at my feet.

Quick! What aisle are the douches in? I've got three bitches at the beach cottage and they all stick to high heaven."... "You do carry Massengill, don't you? That's the best brand, according to my research." "Ah..." What kind of man researches douches? A man who goes to bed with three women... "Would you mind checking your inventory in the back? I'll need more." "I'm not allowed to leave the register, but I'll be happy to page our stock boy." Douche-man grunted and flipped the package around. "It's gonna take at least two boxes for Loa. She's big. Got wide hips. Skinny legs, though. Kinda like a twenty-gallon tank on toothpicks.

Sometimes I was fantasizing: I had big thoughts that were pure fun and entertainment about a fast convertible, next summer’s vacation, or retirement on the beach. These gave me a quick high—sometimes followed by a bit of a low. At other times I was dwelling: I hyperfocused my future thoughts on the bad things that might happen, such as struggling to get a job, taking thirty years to pay off my student loans, or never being able to retire. These made me anxious.

I quickly texted Granny and told her to call around and find out the buzz on the recruiting. She texted back that she would get on it after she and Dwayne finished a round of paintball. She promised to have some info at lunch. I hoped to hell they’d at least gone out to the deserted beach to shoot each other with paint, but my expectation was that they were attacking each other in broad daylight in the quaint confines of her neighborhood. So much for no arrests… The

This beach I voyage on leads me through the earth's immortal consistencies. Each form I encounter obeys the principles of perfection and trial, a timelessness in the making. The proportions of truth are at hand. Existence is celebrated in a splinter of driftwood, worn by wind-driven sand into the shape of an arrow. The onshore waves jostle each other, busy with their eternal changing, mixing crab shells, sand grains, and fish bones together. The trim little shorebirds feeding at the water's edge are acutely aware of one another, under the light and shadow leaning and drifting over all awareness. Wither own mysteries behind their beady eyes, their quick, advantageous movements, they follow the great, unifying sea." ~ John Hay. Bird of Light.

Spence beached the boat and strutted up to where Denny and Mr. Jones were working. He stared at Denny and smiled. “You got enough of that shit on your face?” he asked. Mr. Jones look up sharply. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “You don’t talk to a lady like that.” Spence laughed. “What lady?” he said. Denny blushed. She could see the anger building in Mr. Jones’s eyes. “It’s all right,” she said quickly. “I don’t care.” Mr. Jones turned to her. “Well, you should,” he told her, his eyes flashing, “and Mr. Spencer here would respect you more if you did, whether he realizes it or not.” Spence snorted derisively. “Well, like it or not, you keep a civil tongue while you’re working for me, mister, understand?” said Mr. Jones. Spence shrugged. “You’re the boss,” he said, and started walking up toward the shack. Mr. Jones picked up a nail. “You kids today use too darn much profanity anyway,” he yelled. He banged the nail into the brace. “You use it anytime, anyplace. It’s not right.” He banged another nail. “Shows a lack of respect, not to mention a deficient vocabulary.” He slammed another nail into the wood. “There’s a time and a place for profanity.” He held another nail and smashed the hammer down. “Aagh! Like now! Dammit!” He dropped the hammer and grabbed his thumb. Denny covered her mouth and turned away so he wouldn’t see her laugh, but he saw anyway. “Oh, very funny, huh?” said Mr. Jones. Denny couldn’t stop giggling. Soon she had Mr. Jones laughing too. “That’s what I get for trying to defend your honor,” he said. “Sorry,” said Denny. She looked up the hill and saw Spence duck into the shed. There was a burst of loud, muffled laughter, and she started giggling all over again. “All right, all right,” said Mr. Jones. “Are you going to go get me a Band-Aid or do I have to stand here and bleed to death while you and your friend up there make sport of me?

Er..." I bit my lower lip. "Do you have a minute? I wanted to talk to you really quickly, without being overheard." She looked mildly surprised but sat down on the end of the bed and nodded toward a chair. "Of course." Jim ambled over, plopping itself down at her feet. I glanced at the demon. "Er..." "Jim, shoo," Aisling said, correctly reading my thoughts. "What? I'm not doing anything!" "You're making May uncomfortable. Go see what the boys are doing." "Whatever it is, it won't be nearly as interesting as this," it answered. "Oh, it doesn't matter, I guess," I said with a tight smile. "Jim might have some helpful insights as well." "I'm all over helpful insights, sister," it told me with an oddly endearing grin. "What's the problem? You can tell Dr. Jim. Is it something in the romance department? Need some advice on how to handle Gabriel?" "No, thank you-" "Ah. Then it's the sex, right? Fiery, animalistic, dragon sex too much for you?" It was difficult to keep from rolling my eyes. "Thank you, my sex life is not open to-" "What's the silver dragon element? Earth?" Jim's face screwed up as it thought. "Oh, man, that means he's gonna want to do it outdoors all the time. Buck naked in the wilderness. My advice is to take sunscreen and bug spray. And maybe a spatula or something to dig the sand out of your butt crack, in case he takes you to a beach." "Jim!" Aisling said, wrapping her hands around the demon's muzzle. She shot me an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry. It knows better than to offer unwanted sexual advice." "Just trying to be helpful," it said in a muffled voice. "Well, you're not. And you can just be quiet unless you have something of importance to offer to the conversation," Aisling told it as she released its muzzle

We enjoyed our newfound intimacy, quietly and tenderly adoring each other as Jasper kept hopping into his pretty master's lap to be in the middle of things. There is nothing like love when it is new, especially when it comes quickly, and out of the blue. How we had found each other, why we had found each other, and the otherworldly mystery surrounding our romance — much of which she was still unaware — felt unimportant compared to being in each other's arms and being happy that we had. There had been a time on a blood-soaked beach far away when I was unsure whether I would even make it back. To make it back, have literary success, and then find love, seemed unfair to those who had fallen beside me and made the trip home in darkness. Had that happened to Johnny, or were those in the village wrong?