Rain And Coffee Quotes

Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the "good life", whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.

People always think that happiness is a faraway thing," thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. "Oh, it's just a couple little innocent bad days." Well, we had a big rain. I don't know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!

What's a rainy day without some delicious coffee-flavoured loneliness?

Jacob made me feel safe. He was like a living lullaby. A softly spoken word. The smell of coffee and toast in the morning or a cozy fleece blanket. The rain pattering on the roof on a day where you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything.

Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain. Gat, he was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever.

Your salary is not love and your word is not love. Your clothes are not love and holding hands is not love. Sex is not love and a kiss is not love. Long letters are not love and a text is not love. Flowers are not love and a box of chocolates is not love. Sunsets are not love and photographs are not love. The stars are not love and a beach under the moonlight is not love. The smell of someone else on your pillow is not love and the feeling of their skin touching your skin is not love. Heart-shaped candy is not love and an overseas holiday is not love. The truth is not love and winning an argument is not love. Warm coffee isn't love and cheap cards bought from stores are not love. Tears are not love and laughter is not love. A head on a shoulder is not love and messages written at the front of books given as gifts are not love. Apathy is not love and numbness is not love. A pain in your chest is not love and clenching your fist is not love. Rain is not love. Only you. Only you, are love.

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.”I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savored the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King Cole sang a perky tune. I watched the rain beat down on the road outside and told myself that one day this would be twenty years ago.

people always think that happiness is a far away thing, something complicated and hard to get. yet, little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love. those little things make happiness.

This is my last letter There will be no others. This is the last grey cloud That will rain on you, After this, you will never again Know the rain. This is the last drop of wine in my cup There will be no more drunkenness. This is the last letter of madness, The last letter of childhood. After me you will no longer know The purity of youth The beauty of madness. I have loved you Like a child running from school Hiding birds and poems In his pockets. With you I was a child of Hallucinations, Distractions, Contradictions, I was a child of poetry and nervous writing. As for you, You were a woman of Eastern ways Waiting for her fate to appear In the lines of the coffee cups. How miserable you are, my lady, After today You won't be in the blue notebooks, In the pages of the letters, In the cry of the candles, In the mailman's bag. You won't be Inside the children's sweets In the colored kites. You won't be in the pain of the letters In the pain of the poems. You have exiled yourself From the gardens of my childhood You are no longer poetry.

And he is enchanted by the beauty of small things: hot coffee, wind through an open window, the tapping of rain, a passing bicycle, the desolation of snow on a winter's day.

Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.

He met his day in the shower, washing his hair with shampoo that was guaranteed to have never been put in a bunny's eyes and from which ten percent of the profits went to save the whales. He lathered his face with shaving cream free of chlorofluorocarbons, thereby saving the ozone layer. He breakfasted on fertile eggs laid by sexually satisfied chickens that were allowed to range while listening to Brahms, and muffins made with pesticide-free grain, so no eagle-egg shells were weakened by his thoughtless consumption. He scrambled the eggs in margarine free of tropical oils, thus preserving the rain forest, and he added milk from a cartn made of recycled paper and shipped from a small family farm. By the time he finished his second cup of coffee, which would presumably help to educate the children of a poor peasant farmer named Juan Valdez, Sam was on the verge of congratulating himself for single-handedly preserving the planet just by getting up in the morning.

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don’t feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid’s runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are— particularly when it’s difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it’s done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain (“I’m not a big one for paying compliments…”), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.

Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Mirren, she is sugar, curiousity, and rain. Gat was contemplation and enthusiam. Ambition and strong coffee. My liars.

By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it.

We both disliked rude rickshwalas, shepu bhaji in any form, group photographs at weddings, lizards, tea that has gone cold, the habit of taking newspaper to the toilet, kissing a boy who'd just smoked a cigarette et cetra. Another list. The things we loved: strong coffee, Matisse, Rumi, summer rain, bathing together, Tom Hanks, rice pancakes, Cafe Sunrise, black-and-white photographs, the first quiet moments after you wake up in the morning.

When it rains, the moisture in the humid air blankets our town with the smell of damp coffee grounds wafting in from the Nescafé factory at the town’s eastern edge. I don’t like coffee but I like that smell. It’s comforting; it unites the town in a common sensory experience; it’s good industry, like the roaring rug mill that fills our ears, brings work and signals our town’s vitality. There is a place here—you can hear it, smell it—where people make lives, suffer pain, enjoy small pleasures, play baseball, die, make love, have kids, drink themselves drunk on spring nights and do their best to hold off the demons that seek to destroy us, our homes, our families, our town.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

So you make this deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.' Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction. A rain dance even more so. I thought I might finally have offended Loyd past the point of no return, like stealing the lobster from frozen foods that time, to get myself fired. But Loyd was just thinking. After a minute he said, 'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to cause them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance.' In balance.' Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with us.' And what is the deal?' I asked. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.' Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?' Exactly like that. 'Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one.

Pandas and rain forests are never mentioned when it comes to the millions of people taking joyrides in their Range Rovers. Rather, it's the little things we're strong-armed into conserving. At a chain coffee bar in San Francisco, I saw a sign near the cream counter that read NAPKINS COME FROM TREES - CONSERVE! In case you missed the first sign, there was a second one two feet away, reading YOU WASTE NAPKINS - YOU WASTE TREES!!! The cups, of course, are also made of paper, yet there's no mention of the mighty redwood when you order your four-dollar coffee. The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free.

To this day I never know which version of myself I’m going to wake up to. It can happen that the smallest chores or decisions—brushing my teeth, hanging up a towel, should I have tea or coffee—overwhelm me. Sometimes I find the best way to get through the day is by setting myself tiny, achievable goals that take me from one minute to the next. If you sometimes feel like that, you are not alone, and I urge you to talk about it to someone. It’s easy to bask in the sun, not so easy to enjoy the rain. But one can’t exist without the other. The weather always changes. Feelings of sadness and happiness deserve equal mental screen time.

An aptitude test established architecture as an alternative [career]. But what decided the matter for [Teddy Cruz] was the sight of a fourth-year architecture student sitting at his desk at a window, drawing and nursing a cup of coffee as rain fell outside. 'I don't know, I just liked the idea of having this relationship to the paper and the adventure of imagining the spaces. That was the first image that captured me.

Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio saying, "Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell." And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella.

Sitting there with Hadden, I realized how uncomplicated real happiness was: a cup of coffee, a light rain, a good friend sitting by your side-that was true happiness.

When you left you left behind a field of silent flowers under a sky full of unstirred clouds...you left a million butterflies mid-silky flutters You left like midnight rain against my dreaming ears Oh and how you left leaving my coffee scentless and my couch comfortless leaving upon my fingers the melting snow of you you left behind a calendar full of empty days and seasons full of aimless wanders leaving me alone with an armful of sunsets your reflection behind in every puddle your whispers upon every curtain your fragrance inside every petal you left your echoes in between the silence of my eyes Oh and how you left leaving my sands footless and my shores songless leaving me with windows full of moistened moonlight nights and nights of only a half-warmed soul and when you left... you left behind a lifetime of moments untouched the light of a million stars unshed and when you left you somehow left my poem...unfinished. (Published in Taj Mahal Review Vol.11 Number 1 June 2012)

Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee. a

When I think of coffee, I think of fresh mornings, companionship, a book while it rains outside, a conversation with a best friend, comfortable silence shared with someone special and warm hugs. Coffee teaches us life lessons, like the importance of taking one sip at a time and pausing every now and then to reflect on life.

The idea of love walked along the water and her gaze was full of absence and her eyes spat lighting. The impressionable evening received by turns the imprints of grasses, clouds, bodies, and wore crazy astronomical designs. The idea of love walked straight ahead without seeing anything; she was wearing tiny isosceles mirrors whose perfect assemblage was amazing. They were so many images of fish tails, when, by their angelic nature, they answer the promise one might make of always finding each other again. Finding each other again even in the depths of a forest, where the thread of a star is an articulation more silent than life, the dawn a liquor stronger than blood. Who is lost, who truly wanders off when a cup of coffee is steaming in the fog and waiters dressed in snow circulate patiently on the surface of floors whose desired height can be indicated with one's hands? Who? A solitary man whom the idea of love has just left and who tucks in his spirit like an imaginary bed. The man falls all the same and in the next room, under the moon-white verandah, a woman rises whom the idea of love has abandoned. The gravel weeps outside, a rain of glass is falling in which we recognize small chains, tears in which we have time to see ourselves, mirror tears, shards of windows, singular crystals like the ones we witness in our hand on awakening, leaves and the faded petals of those roses that once embelished certain distillery bottles. It's just that the idea of love, it seems angry with love. This is how it began.

Then it started to rain, so she went inside and made some coffee and did what she had never done in her life: tried the newspaper crossword. “What a stupid exercise,” said her dæmon after five minutes. “Words belong in contexts, not pegged out like biological specimens.

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

Suddenly finding it hard to breathe. It wasn’t because his grip was too tight, mind you. It was just the sudden proximity. And he smelled so good, the scent of fresh coffee and rain clinging to his skin as he leaned in.

She wanted an omlette, a mug of too-sweet coffee. She wanted to hear the rain on the rooftops and be snug and warm in her tiny room in the Slat. There were adventures to come.

people are suffering, brew some coffee. Sometimes it’s all you can do to help. 

Rain, books and coffee allow us to express ourselves freely.

Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you. When I was a young man I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing. I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman... I challenged everything, was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind... Peace and happiness to me were signs of inferiority, tenants of the weak, an addled mind. But as I went on...it gradually began to occur to me that I wasn't different from the others, I was the same... Everybody was nudging, inching, cheating for some insignificant advantage, the lie was the weapon and the plot was empty... Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt... I re-formulated. I don't know when, date, time, all that but the change occured. Something in me relaxed, smoothed out. I no longer had to prove that I was a man, I didn’t have to prove anything. I began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe. Or a dog walking along a sidewalk. Or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose, it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful. Then...it was gone. I began to feel good, I began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those... I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness... And finally I discovered real feelings of others, unheralded, like lately, like this morning, as I was leaving for the track, I saw my wife in bed, just the shape of her head there...so still, I ached for her life, just being there under the covers. I kissed her in the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. Feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, I entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, I saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.

They were taken from Anacortes on a train to a transit camp—the horse stables at the Puyallup fairgrounds. They lived in the horse stalls and slept on canvas army cots; at nine p.m. they were confined to their stalls; at ten p.m. they were made to turn out their lights, one bare bulb for each family. The cold in the stalls worked into their bones, and when it rained that night they moved their cots because of the leaks in the roof. The next morning, at six A.M., they slogged through mud to the transit camp mess hall and ate canned figs and white bread from pie tins and drank coffee out of tin cups.

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.” I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

Hey,” I said. “Do you want to grab a coffee?” His chiseled face softened, and he looked at me as if he were about to say yes. As if he wanted nothing more in the world but to say yes to sitting at a crappy diner over a cup of coffee while the rain came down.

Wes: Liz is . . . different. She's the kind of girl who wears a dress when everyone wears jeans. She listens to music instead of watching TV. She drinks black coffee, has a secret tattoo, runs three miles every day rain or shine, and still practices the piano.

i wanted to take your hand and run with you together toward ourselves down the street to your street i wanted to laugh aloud and skip the notes past the marquee advertising “women in love” past the record shop with “The Spirit In The Dark” past the smoke shop past the park and no parking today signs past the people watching me in my blue velvet and i don’t remember what you wore but only that i didn’t want anything to be wearing you i wanted to give myself to the cyclone that is your arms and let you in the eye of my hurricane and know the calm before and some fall evening after the cocktails and the very expensive and very bad steak served with day-old baked potatoes after the second cup of coffee taken while listening to the rejected violin player maybe some fall evening when the taxis have passed you by and that light sort of rain that occasionally falls in new york begins you’ll take a thought and laugh aloud the notes carrying all the way over to me and we’ll run again together toward each other yes?

April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Gold winked at his wrist as he pressed his choice for two coffees on the AutoChef built into the side panel. "Cream?" "Black." "A woman after my own heart." Moments later, he opened the protective door and offered her a china cup in a delicate saucer. "We have more of a selection on the plane," he said, then settled back with his coffee. "I bet." The steam rising from her cup smelled like heaven. Eve took a tentative sip -- and nearly moaned. It was real. No simulation made from vegetable concentrate so usual since the depletion of the rain forests in the late twentieth. This was the real thing, ground from rich Columbian beans, singing with caffeine. She sipped again, and could have wept. "Problem?" He enjoyed her reaction immensely, the flutter of the lashes, the faint flush, the darkening of the eyes -- a similar response, he noted, to a woman purring under a man's hands. "Do you know how long it's been since I had real coffee?" He smiled. "No." "Neither do I." Unashamed, she closed her eyes as she lifted the cup again. "You'll have to excuse me, this is a private moment. We'll talk on the plane.

And waking, once again, face smudged into Andrea's couch, the red quilt humped around her shoulders, smelling coffee, while Andrea hummed some Tokyo pop song to herself in the next room, dressing, in a gray morning of Paris rain.

When you do drugs, you count like a chemist: The numbers are wild, the formulas are easy. Then, when you try to get clean, you start to count like a pharmacist: How many hours between doses? How much or how little do you need to maintain? Then, when you finally give it up completely, you count like Noah in his dinky, seafaring ark full of pairs of every animal in God's creation: You count days. You wait for the rain to stop, for the sky to clear, for life to ever seem normal again. And then eventually it does. Then you start to count how many cups of black coffee you need just to get through every day, how many cigarettes you smoke. You know the address of every Starbucks in a mile radius, which is easy because there so many, and you know the names of every restaurant where they allow you to smoke, which is easy because they are so few.

The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence in a little retired street of Königsberg, an old town on the north-eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral performed in a more passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew that it was exactly half-past three o'clock when Kant stepped forth from his house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in his hand, and betook himself to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the "Philosopher's Walk." Summer and winter he walked up and down it eight times, and when the weather was dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld his servant, the old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind Kant with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence. What a strange contrast did this man's outward life present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts! In sooth, had the citizens of Königsberg had the least presentiment of the full significance of his ideas, they would have felt far more awful dread at the presence of this man than at the sight of an executioner, who can but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as he passed at his customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly manner and set their watches by him.

Becoming a parent doesn't make you less of a woman. You matter. Your happiness matters. Your health matters. Your dreams matter. Today do at least one thing for you. Take a walk in the rain. Meet a friend for coffee. Write in your journal. Read a book. Plan a trip. Hug a tree. Help a stranger. Create something. Grow something. Sing something. Learn something. Whatever it is that makes you smile, do a little of it each day. Your children are watching. Let them see you happy.

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. ... This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven?

Love looked like a man who had coffee ready for me in the mornings even though he preferred tea, and remembered exactly how I took it. Love ate my sugary spaghetti, and held an umbrella over my head when it rained, and apologized when he knew he was wrong. Love was inquisitive, and mindful, and—somewhere beneath the grumpy exterior—sweet. Love was tricking yourself into doing something you didn’t want to do, because you loved the person who did.

Cinta itu seperti kopi. Sepahit apapun rasanya, ia tetap dinikmati dan takkan pernah jera dicicipi lagi." (Coffee Time With You)

People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains—a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone—just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

there are places in the world where real life is still happening, far away from here, in a pre-Hitler Europe, where hundreds of lights are lit every evening, ladies and gentlemen gather to drink coffee with cream in oak-panelled rooms, or sit comfortably in splendid coffee-houses under gilt chandeliers, stroll arm in arm to the opera or the ballet, observe from close-up the lives of great artists, passionate love affairs, broken hearts, the painter’s girlfriend falling in love with his best friend the composer, and going out at midnight bareheaded in the rain to stand alone on the ancient bridge whose reflection trembles in the river. *

I stood under the umbrella for hours before I folded it up and started walking. Umbrellas can block the sun, shield the rain, and if you flip an open one over, it can also be used as a large coffee cup.

He nearly called you again last night. Can you imagine that, after all this time? He can. He imagines calling you or running into you by chance. Depending on the weather, he imagines you in one of those cotton dresses of yours with flowers on it or in faded blue jeans and a thick woollen button-up cardigan over a checkered shirt, drinking coffee from a mug, looking through your tortoiseshell glasses at a book of poetry while it rains. He thinks of you with your hair tied back and the characteristic sweet scent on your neck. He imagines you this way when he is on the train, in the supermarket, at his parents' house, at night, alone, and when he is with a woman. He is wrong, though. You didn't read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry, but you didn't. If pressed, he confesses to an imprecise recollection of what it was you read and, anyway, it wasn't your reading that started this. It was the laughter, the carefree laughter, the three-dimensional Coca-Cola advertisement that you were, the try-anything-once friends, the imperviousness to all that came before you, the chain telephone calls, the in-jokes, the instant music, the sunlight you carried with you, the way he felt when you spoke to his parents, the introductory undergraduate courses, the inevitability of your success, the beach houses, ...

When we came out of the sunnily lit interior of the Ladies' Day offices, the streets were gray and fuming with rain. It wasn’t the nice kind of rain that rinses. you clean, but the sort of rain I imagine they must have in Brazil. It flew straight down from the sky in drops the size of coffee saucers and hit the hot sidewalks with a hiss that sent clouds of steam writhing up from the gleaming, dark concrete.

Solitude makes me feel calm. The rain affects me differently. Books never make me feel lonely. I love hugging trees, and sleeping on grass. Can't help being addicted to coffee and writing. What about you?

A sideways rain quickly soaked the pair as they made their way across the street toward a small diner. Inside, the smell of coffee permeated the air and Benny Goodman’s band could be heard from a radio in the corner.

Dear Patton: I've been feeling blue lately but I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the amount of rain we've had over the last few weeks. What are your thoughts on that? Ms. Diller Cary, NC Dear Ms. Diller: Rain can have a profound effect on someone inclined toward melancholy. I live in Los Angeles, and, as of this writing, we've just experienced three weeks of unending late-winter storms. The sky has been a limitless bowl of sludgy, hopeless gray. The ground, soaked and muddy, emits burbly, hissing spurts with every step, which sound like a scornful parent who sees no worth, hope, or value in their offspring. The morning light through my bedroom window promises nothing but a damp, unwelcoming day of thankless busywork and futile, doomed chores. My breakfast cereal tastes like being ostracized. My morning coffee fills my stomach with dread. What's the point of even answering this question? The rain--it will not stop. Even if I say something that will help you--which I won't, because I'm such a useless piece of shit--you'll eventually die and I'll die and everyone we know will die and this book will turn to dust and the universe will run down and stop, and dead dead dead dead dead. Dead. Read Chicken Soup for the Soul, I guess. Dead. Dead dead. Patton

If there is something, though, if there is...well, I believe in the things I love...the feel of a good horse under me, the blue along those mountains over yonder, the firm, confident feel of a good gunbutt in my hand, the way the red gold of your hair looks against your throat. The creak of a saddle in the hot sun and the long riding, the way you feel when you come to the top of a ridge and look down across miles and miles of land you have never seen, or maybe no man has ever seen. I believe in the pleasant sound of running water, the way the leaves turn red in the fall. I believe in the smell of autumn leaves burning, and the crackle of a burning log. Sort of sounds like it was chuckling over the memories of a time when it was a tree. I like the sound of rain on a roof, and the look of a fire in a fireplace, and the embers of a campfire and coffee in the morning. I believe in the solid, hearty, healthy feel of a of a fist landing, the feel of a girl in my arms, warm and close. Those are the things that matter.

I want to feel the rain on my face, to smile at any man I feel attracted to, to accept all the coffees men might buy for me. I want to kiss my mother, tell her I love her, weep in her lap, unashamed of showing my feelings, because they were always there even though I hid them.

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank. Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things. While closer at hand, a patient pigeon scuffed its feet on the flashing. Easing

It’s just that you came right after he left.It’s just that your words were warm and comforting.And it felt like the safest hideout,holding up the door behind my pain.It’s just that your jokes sounded alike.So much that I could hear his laughter when you cracked them.It’s just that you loved iced coffee and rain.It’s just that you parted your hair to the right and preferred window seats. It’s just that it’s always been him.It’s just that he is still crying inside me.Wanting to be remembered.For a really long time.It’s just that I don’t love you,but his impressions that you carry. || I’m so sorry that I am not ready to love you.

Then the wind comes so swift and dashing that it takes the autumn leaves with it, and they rise into the juggling air, while the trees bleat and blubber. Then drops fall, big as the thumb … the earth itself seems to heave up and cheep in the monsoon rains. It churns and splashes, beats against the treetops, reckless and wilful, and suddenly floating forwards, it bucks back and spits forward and pours down upon the green, weak coffee leaves, thumping them down to the earth.

From my chair I had a clear view of Hobie’s Noah’s Ark: paired elephants, zebras, carven beasts marching two by two, clear down to tiny hen and rooster and the bunnies and mice bringing up the rear. And the memory was located there, beyond words, a coded message from that first afternoon: rain streaming down the skylights, the homely file of creatures lined on the kitchen counter waiting to be saved. Noah: the great conservator, the great caretaker. “And—” he’d gotten up to make some coffee—“I

People think that happiness is a faraway thing, something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains- a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone- just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

morning coffee mug would be used to bash in my skull, or that my purse would be used to choke me. That just doesn’t happen. Shouldn’t happen. Boring

The smell of hot coffee is like a pleasant scent of the first rain on dry earth; It is a product favoring Friendship, Love, Affection, and should always be consumed with someone else.

Continuing up Rennes. Dodging little Saabs and Renaults. Loving walking here. Sun alternately streaming. Obliterating physiognomies. No longer nouns. But movement. Disappearing. Now heavily raining. Sitting out anyway. Over drain smelling of beer. Metro. Sewers. Fetid breath of Paris. Two cold coffees. Watching shadows lengthening. On la Gaite opposite. Where Colette once performing. Having walked in old boots across city. Drawing mole above lip. Rice-powdering delicious arms. Paris a drug. P saying on phone. Yes Paris a drug. A woman. And I waking this a.m. Thinking there must be some way. Of staying. Now my love’s silhouette of rooftops eclipsing. Into night. Cold heinous breath. Blowing on privates. Through grille underneath.

.... romance is so much bigger than just a love story. Romance has to do with making things lovely because of love. Romance means absorbing the beauty of life, conversation, atmosphere, places, and surroundings. It means increasing our awareness of the fragrance of pine trees, freshly ground coffee, and sheets drying on the line; hearing the music of waves, children's laughter, and he rain drumming on the roof: seeing the signature of God on His creation. It means drinking the gift of life to the dregs. All to be enjoyed, all to be taken in." p. 17

Perhaps we ought to feel with more imagination. As today the sky 70 degrees above zero with lines falling The way September moves a lace curtain to be near a pear, The oddest device can't be usual. And that is where The pejorative sense of fear moves axles. In the stars There is no longer any peace, emptied like a cup of coffee Between the blinding rain that interviews. You were my quintuplets when I decided to leave you Opening a picture book the pictures were all of grass Slowly the book was on fire, you the reader Sitting with specs full of smoke exclaimed How it was a rhyme for "brick" or "redder." The next chapter told all about a brook. You were beginning to see the relation when a tidal wave Arrived with sinking ships that spelled out "Aladdin." I thought about the Arab boy in his cave But the thoughts came faster than advice. If you knew that snow was a still toboggan in space The print could rhyme with "fallen star.

Outside the walls of the Crimson Cabaret was a world of rain and darkness. At intervals, whenever someone entered or exited through the front door of the club, one could actually see the steady rain and was allowed a brief glimpse of the darkness. Inside it was all amber light, tobacco smoke, and the sound of the raindrops hitting the windows, which were all painted black. On such nights, as I sat at one of the tables in that drab little place, I was always filled with an infernal merriment, as if I were waiting out the apocalypse and could not care less about it. I also liked to imagine that I was in the cabin of an old ship during a really vicious storm at sea or in the club car of a luxury passenger train that was being rocked on its rails by ferocious winds and hammered by a demonic rain. Sometimes, when I was sitting in the Crimson Cabaret on a rainy night, I thought of myself as occupying a waiting room for the abyss (which of course was exactly what I was doing) and between sips from my glass of wine or cup of coffee I smiled sadly and touched the front pocket of my coat where I kept my imaginary ticket to oblivion.

Amazing. Chamberlain let his eyes close down to the slits, retreating within himself. He had learned that you could sleep on your feet on the long marches. You set your feet to going and after a while they went by themselves and you sort of turned your attention away and your feet went on walking painlessly, almost without feeling, and gradually you closed down your eyes so that all you could see were the heels of the man in front of you, one heel, other heel, one heel, other heel, and so you moved on dreamily in the heat and the dust, closing your eyes against the sweat, head down and gradually darkening, so you actually slept with the sight of the heels in front of you, one heel, other heel, and often when the man in front of you stopped you bumped into him. There were no heels today, but there was the horse he led by the reins. He did not know the name of this horse. He did not bother any more; the horses were all dead too soon. Yet you learn to love it. Isn’t that amazing? Long marches and no rest, up very early in the morning and asleep late in the rain, and there’s a marvelous excitement to it, a joy to wake in the morning and feel the army all around you and see the campfires in the morning and smell the coffee… … awake all night in front of Fredericksburg. We attacked in the afternoon, just at dusk, and the stone wall was aflame from one end to the other, too much smoke, couldn’t see, the attack failed, couldn’t withdraw, lay there all night in the dark, in the cold among the wounded and dying. Piled-up bodies in front of you to catch the bullets, using the dead for a shield; remember the sound? Of bullets in dead bodies? Like a shot into a rotten leg, a wet thick leg. All a man is: wet leg of blood. Remember the flap of a torn curtain in a blasted window, fragment-whispering in that awful breeze: never, forever, never, forever. You have a professor’s mind. But that is the way it sounded. Never. Forever. Love that too? Not love it. Not quite. And yet, I was never so alive.

started to sit up, but his hand snaked around my stomach and pulled me back to him. “You should try to get some more sleep,” he said. “I can’t,” I said. “Not until this is over.” He sat up beside me, taking my hand in his and quickly kissing the back of it before suggesting, “Run?” The man knows me. I glanced out the small window. The sun was yet to appear on the horizon and rain fell lightly, but the wind had eased for now. I beamed. “Coffee first.” He laughed as he stood up and tossed me a T-shirt. “Coffee first.” And it turns out, even when the world might be about to end, a girl can still swoon.

Fictional Characters" Do they ever want to escape? Climb out of the white pages and enter our world? Holden Caulfield slipping in the movie theater to catch the two o'clock Anna Karenina sitting in a diner, reading the paper as the waitress serves up a cheeseburger. Even Hector, on break from the Iliad, takes a stroll through the park, admires the tulips. Maybe they grew tired of the author's mind, all its twists and turns. Or were finally weary of stumbling around Pamplona, a bottle in each fist, eating lotuses on the banks of the Nile. For others, it was just too hot in the small California town where they'd been written into a lifetime of plowing fields. Whatever the reason, here they are, roaming the city streets rain falling on their phantasmal shoulders. Wouldn't you, if you could? Step out of your own story, to lean against a doorway of the Five & Dime, sipping your coffee, your life, somewhere far behind you, all its heat and toil nothing but a tale resting in the hands of a stranger, the sidewalk ahead wet and glistening. "Fictional Characters" by Danusha Laméris from The Moons of August. © Autumn House Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission

She smiled and then walked out of the coffee shop. I stared after her. My baggy sweater, a pair of black leggings, and bright red rain boots. She somehow made the combination look like the sexiest thing in the world.

I fell asleep last night to the sweet smell of lavender on my sheets and awoke this morning to the aroma of coffee brewing. How much I would miss if I could not smell the roses in my garden or the fragrance after the rain.

So you make a deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.'… "'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to CAUSE them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance…. Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with US…. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.'… "'Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?' "'Exactly like that. "Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one."'… "It's a good idea,' I said. 'Especially since we're still here sleeping on God's couch. We're permanent houseguests.' "'Yep, we are. Better remember how to put everything back how we found it.' It was a new angle on religion, for me. I felt a little embarrassed for my blunt interrogation. And the more I thought about it, even more embarrassed for my bluntly utilitarian culture. 'The way they tell it to us Anglos, God put the earth here for us to use, westward-ho. Like a special little playground.' "Loyd said, 'Well, that explains a lot.'… "'But where do you go when you've pissed in every corner of your playground?'... "To people who think of themselves as God's houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.

The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch.

Love looked like a man who had coffee ready for me in the mornings even though he preferred tea, and remembered exactly how I took it. Love ate my sugary spaghetti, and held an umbrella over my head when it rained, and apologized when he knew he was wrong. Love was inquisitive, and mindful, and—somewhere beneath the grumpy exterior—sweet. Love was tricking yourself into doing something you didn’t want to do, because you loved the person who did. Love was a bunch of small things that added up to bigger things. Love was feeling valued. And accepted. Just the way you were. It was never feeling too much, or not enough, even though often you were both, because Love loved you anyway. Not in spite of it, but because of it.

But when we expect winter wonder, our attention and behavior reorient accordingly. The cold becomes a reminder that it’s time to make soup, our commutes become chances to observe the rain fall, and gray mornings become aesthetic backdrops for coffee drinking. When

It rained the day they got it right. Anna could hear the thrum of it against the glass of the window as she speared a piece of meat on a fork and promptly burst into tears because it tasted just like every time her mother had made it. It tasted like rain on the air and frogs hopping across the grass and coffee beans in a jar and the green, green leaves of the forest rustling in the night and the sound of her mother humming a song. It tasted like a future in which the rain and the coffee beans and her mother weren’t out of reach after all.

Bloody rain” says Mr Chivers Bouncing a basketball On the one dry patch of court bloody rain” he nods to our Sports class And gives us the afternoon off. Bloody rain all right As Annabel and I run to Megalong Creek hut Faster than we ever have in Chivers’s class And the exercise we have in mind We’ve been training for all year But I doubt if old Chivers Will give us a medal if he ever finds out. We high jump into the hut And strip down Climb under the blankets And cheer the bloody rain As it does a lap or two Around the mountain While Annabel and me Embrace like winners should Like good sports do As Mr. Chivers sips his third coffee And twitches his bad knee From his playing days While miles away Annabel and I Score a convincing victory And for once in our school life The words “Physical Education” Make sense…

The day Emilienne met Satin Lush, she was wearing her cloche hat, newly painted with red poppies. Her hair was curled and peeked lightly out from under the hat to cup the curve of her chin. There was a rip in her stocking. It was May and heavy wet lines of spring rain streamed down the windows of the café where Emilienne had just spent her day serving black coffee and sticky buns to dreamless Irishmen. The smell of glazed sugar and folded pride still lingered on her clothes. As she waited for the rain to let up, the bells of Saint Peter’s chimed five times and the water fell only harder upon the awning over her head. She

Jumpin’ and Mabel had to wait for the verdict outside among the palmettos and saw grass of the square, along with the few other blacks. Just as they spread colorful quilts on the ground and unpacked biscuits and sausage from paper bags, a rain shower sent them grabbing things and running for cover under the overhang of the Sing Oil. Mr. Lane shouted that they had to wait outside—a fact they’d known for a hundred years—and not to get in the way of any customers. Some whites crowded in the diner or the Dog-Gone for coffee, and others clustered in the street beneath bright umbrellas. Kids splashed in sudden puddles and ate Cracker Jacks, expecting a parade.

He knew he loved her in February: steam leaving the mug of coffee in her hands in thick curls; her hair a snarled mess around her shoulders; the morning on the other side of the window bitter and windswept; her face lovely, pale, and lonely in a way he didn’t understand. She sat in the chair in his bedroom, in his shirt and a pair of socks that went up to her knees, gooseflesh on her slender legs. A copy of Oliver Twist had been open across the arm of the chair. “I think it might snow today,” she’d said, and he’d been completely in love with her. He thought she might have loved him back in March: in from the rain; his clothes stuck to his skin; the umbrella showering the hardwood of her entry hall; the dinner she’d planned forgotten when he’d helped her out of her jacket and she’d been shivering with cold. That day, when she’d pushed his wet shirt back off his shoulders and stretched up on her toes to kiss him, he was sure there was something new shining deep down in her coffee-colored eyes. “You’re so cute,” she’d said, and he’d known: she loved him.

Tell me what you like, what you want to do.” “I like having a cigarette and a cup of coffee in the morning. And I like watching the rain through a big plate-glass window.” “Is that all?” “Yes, that’s all.” “What about what you want to do in the future?” “Oh, that? … I don’t think about the future. You said you don’t, either. All I think about is death.

Rain is the last thing you want when you're chasing someone in Miami. They drive shitty enough as it is, but on top of that, snow is a foreign concept, which means they never got the crash course in traction judgment for when pavement slickness turns less than ideal. And because of the land-sea temperature differential, Florida has regular afternoon rain showers. Nothing big, over in a jiff. But minutes later, all major intersections in Miami-Dade are clogged with debris from spectacular smash-ups. In Northern states, snow teaches drivers real fast about the Newtonian physics of large moving objects. I haven't seen snow either, but I drink coffee, so the calculus of tire-grip ratio is intuitive to my body.

Can I tell you something about Seattle? Everyone there is a filthy liar. They're all, 'Don't move to Seattle—it's so rainy!' And yet every time I've been there, a tiny amount of rain falls before the whole sky explodes into rainbows and sunlight. Seattleites mean to hog up all the stunning vistas and good coffee and flowering bushes for themselves. Bet on it.

We are grateful to people who occasionally help out, but we elevate them to a higher moral plane when they consistently do so, when we can count on them to show up rain or shine, not just when the boss is looking or free coffee is being served ... Along these lines, we value people who are loyal to their groups, who do not jump ship at the first rough weather.

While other girls were blurry, displaying cracks or, at the very least, seams — ripped jeans, coffee-stained T-shirts, hair that poufed up in the rain — Sophia always looked sharp, clear, as if the resolution had been turned up on a microscope and angled straight at her, as if the money had formed a kind of shrink wrap that kept her protected from the normal destruction of the everyday.

It was raining and I had to walk on the grass. I’ve got mud all over my shoes. They’re brand-new, too.” “I’ll carry you across the grass on the return trip, if you like,” Colby offered with twinkling eyes. “It would have to be over one shoulder, of course,” he added with a wry glance at his artificial arm. She frowned at the bitterness in his tone. He was a little fuzzy because she needed glasses to see at distances. “Listen, nobody in her right mind would ever take you for a cripple,” she said gently and with a warm smile. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Anyway,” she added with a wicked grin, “I’ve already given the news media enough to gossip about just recently. I don’t need any more complications in my life. I’ve only just gotten rid of one big one.” Colby studied her with an amused smile. She was the only woman he’d ever known that he genuinely liked. He was about to speak when he happened to glance over her shoulder at a man approaching them. “About that big complication, Cecily?” “What about it?” she asked. “I’d say it’s just reappeared with a vengeance. No, don’t turn around,” he said, suddenly jerking her close to him with the artificial arm that looked so real, a souvenir of one of his foreign assignments. “Just keep looking at me and pretend to be fascinated with my nose, and we’ll give him something to think about.” She laughed in spite of the racing pulse that always accompanied Tate’s appearances in her life. She studied Colby’s lean, scarred face. He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a pinup, but he had style and guts and if it hadn’t been for Tate, she would have found him very attractive. “Your nose has been broken twice, I see,” she told Colby. “Three times, but who’s counting?” He lifted his eyes and his eyebrows at someone behind her. “Well, hi, Tate! I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” “Obviously,” came a deep, gruff voice that cut like a knife. Colby loosened his grip on Cecily and moved back a little. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said. Tate moved into Cecily’s line of view, half a head taller than Colby Lane. He was wearing evening clothes, like the other men present, but he had an elegance that made him stand apart. She never tired of gazing into his large black eyes which were deep-set in a dark, handsome face with a straight nose, and a wide, narrow, sexy mouth and faintly cleft chin. He was the most beautiful man. He looked as if all he needed was a breastplate and feathers in his hair to bring back the heyday of the Lakota warrior in the nineteenth century. Cecily remembered him that way from the ceremonial gatherings at Wapiti Ridge, and the image stuck stubbornly in her mind. “Audrey likes to rub elbows with the rich and famous,” Tate returned. His dark eyes met Cecily’s fierce green ones. “I see you’re still in Holden’s good graces. Has he bought you a ring yet?” “What’s the matter with you, Tate?” Cecily asked with a cold smile. “Feeling…crabby?” His eyes smoldered as he glared at her. “What did you give Holden to get that job at the museum?” he asked with pure malice. Anger at the vicious insinuation caused her to draw back her hand holding the half-full coffee cup, and Colby caught her wrist smoothly before she could sling the contents at the man towering over her. Tate ignored Colby. “Don’t make that mistake again,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible. He looked as if all his latent hostilities were waiting for an excuse to turn on her. “If you throw that cup at me, so help me, I’ll carry you over and put you down in the punch bowl!” “You and the CIA, maybe!” Cecily hissed. “Go ahead and try…!” Tate actually took a step toward her just as Colby managed to get between them. “Now, now,” he cautioned. Cecily wasn’t backing down an inch. Neither was Tate.

Cesca sipped from her coffee cup as she peered through the windshield into the darkness. Rain was falling hard on a San Francisco she didn’t recognize from her own universe, or from her time in the other Matt’s universe. The real darkness here had nothing to do with night. This San Francisco mirrored the moral corruption and decay of the society which inhabited it. She and Ariel had been here two days, scouring streets filled with perversion and hopelessness; alleyways inhabited by the homeless and mentally ill; sex shops catering to every perversion imaginable and unimaginable; sidewalks teeming with drug addicts and male prostitutes — some dressed as women; street corners inhabited by once lovely young women prematurely aging from selling their bodies to all takers — male and female; children of both sexes, from as young as seven and eight, dressed by pimps to attract pedophiles who cruised this part of the city nightly. Many of the children would be sold on the spot, never to be seen again. Sun-faded and now graffitied wall mosaics of galvanizing yet transient political cult personalities, erected by their blinded followers centuries ago, marked this alternate world’s gradual slide into an ethical, and finally moral abyss, from which it had never crawled out. "God, I can’t believe this is San Francisco,” whispered Ariel from the seat next to Cesca. “I feel like I need to run a bar of soap over my soul.

The day was sunny, fine for walking, brisk, and getting brisker—and in fact, as I cut a diagonal through a little plaza somewhere above Fortieth Street, the last autumn leaves leapt up from the pavement and swirled around our heads, and a sudden misty quality in the atmosphere above seemed to solidify into a ceiling both dark and luminous, and the passersby hunched into their collars, and two minutes later the gusts had settled into a wind, not hard, but steady and cold, and my hands dove into my coat pockets. A bit of rain speckled the pavement. Random snowflakes spiraled in the air. All around me, people seemed to be evacuating the scene, while across the square a vendor shouted that he was closing his cart and you could have his wares for practically nothing, and for no reason I could have named I bought two of his rat-dogs with everything and a cup of doubtful coffee and then learned the reason—they were wonderful. I nearly ate the napkin. New York!

There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. Mama made a big potful each morning and reheated it for dinner and supper and it got stronger as the day wore on. It was an awful lot of water and very little coffee but mama put a lump of chicory in it which made it taste strong and bitter. Each one was allowed three cups a day with milk. Other times you could help yourself to a cup of black coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee. Neeley and Francie loved coffee but seldom drank it. Today, as usual, Neeley let his coffee stand black and ate his condensed milk spread on bread. He sipped a little of the black coffee for the sake of formality. Mama poured out Francie's coffee and put the milk in it even though she knew that the child wouldn't drink it.

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.

Excerpt from Forehead Kisses: "I woke to the sizzle and smell of bacon, fresh brewed coffee, and the soft patter of rain on the window. Cooper was nowhere to be seen. My clock radio read 7:35 a.m. I rolled over on my stomach and just laid quietly in bed absorbing the sweet sounds and smells. About 10 minutes later I heard Cooper come into the room. I felt the bed rock as he kneeled on and crawled across it, ultimately straddling my body. He pulled the sheet down exposing my naked back. He placed gentle, wet kisses down my spine, “Good morning Beautiful.

There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. Mama made a big potful each morning and reheated it for dinner and supper and it got stronger as the day wore on. It was chicory in it which made it taste strong and bitter. Each one was allowed three cups a day with milk. Other times you could help yourself to a cup of black coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.

What was it like to live with genius? Like living alone. Like living alone with a tiger. Everything had to be sacrificed for the work. Plans had to be canceled, meals had to be delayed; liquor had to be bought, as soon as possible, or else all poured into the sink. Money had to be rationed or spent lavishly, changing daily. The sleep schedule was the poet’s to make, and it was as often late nights as it was early mornings. The habit was the demon pet in the house; the habit, the habit, the habit; the morning coffee and books and poetry, the silence until noon. Could he be tempted by a morning stroll? He could, he always could; it was the only addiction where the sufferer longed for anything but the desired; but a morning walk meant work undone, and suffering, suffering, suffering. Keep the habit, help the habit; lay out the coffee and poetry; keep the silence; smile when he walked sulkily out of his office to the bathroom. Taking nothing personally. And did you sometimes leave an art book around with a thought that it would be the key to his mind? And did you sometimes put on music that might unlock the doubt and fear? Did you love it, the rain dance every day? Only when it rained.

Sunday Morning I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. IV She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings

It would be there—the eternal smell of the coffee the sugar the hemp sweating slow iron plates above the forked deliberate brown water and lost lost lost all ultimate blue of latitude and horizon; the hot rain gutterfull plaiting the eaten heads of shrimp; the ten thousand inescapable mornings wherein ten thousand airplants swinging stippleprop the soft scrofulous soaring of sweating brick and ten thousand pairs of splayed brown hired Leonorafeet tigerbarred by jaloused armistice with the invincible sun: the thin black coffee, the myriad fish stewed in a myriad oil—tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow; not only not to hope, not even to wait: just to endure.

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don't feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid's runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are-- particularly when it's difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it’s done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain ("I'm not a big one for paying compliments..."), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.

These pastries are gorgeous colors," she said. "I didn't even know I liked green, but I do. It reminds me of her. I keep thinking of her grandparents' house in India. My mother and aunt grew up in the city, but their grandparents grew coffee on a plantation a few hours away. Have you ever heard of Coorg? It's this region in the south of India where people grow tea and coffee, and they have the most beautiful forests, and we used to go there every year when I was little. My mother would take me out to show me the coffee blossoms and the tigers in the forests. It was always so green there, and the air always felt like rain. And now it's raining here and it's all just wet and cold and I'm scared that-" She broke off. "I don't know. Sorry. I'm probably not making much sense." Lila was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "What are you scared of?" Anna shook her head. She couldn't shape the words, and she wasn't sure she could say them to someone she had only just met anyway. To distract herself, she took a bite of one of the pan dulce Lila had given her. It almost melted in her mouth, moist and sweet and perfectly crumbly. "This is amazing," she said. Lila beamed. "I'm glad you like it." Another bite, another taste. Lila continued to swing gently, back and forth, in an oddly soothing rhythm. The taste of the pan dulce on Anna's tongue felt soft, comforting, like a friend holding her hand.

The mysterious kachampuli wasn't a magical elixir. There were still a few hiccups- a dash too much salt here, an overcooked and chewy chunk of pork there- and it took a few more attempts and a few more days to make it perfect. It rained the day they got it right. Anna could hear the thrum of it against the glass of the window as she speared a piece of meat on a fork and promptly burst into tears because it tasted just like every time her mother had made it. It tasted like rain on the air and frogs hopping across the grass and coffee beans in a jar and the green, green leaves of the forest rustling in the night and the sound of her mother humming a song. It tasted like a future in which the rain and the coffee beans and her mother weren't out of reach after all.

The pan dulce was perfect, and it gave Anna an idea. Talking to Lila about her favorite memories of her mother had shaken loose parts of the past she had either forgotten or overlooked. Like the songs her mother would sing as she cooked the one and only thing she ever cooked; like that time they visited the family coffee estate and Mum shot a rampaging wild boar and then they cooked and ate it later that night; like the smell of rain in the forest; like the fat, sour gooseberries they would pick off the trees; like fresh peppercorns straight off the vine; like countless other jumbled memories and smells and tastes and sounds that had been tucked away in some corner of her mind gathering dust for so long. Mum's favorite dish, the one and only thing she ever cooked. I'm going to make it. Anna had never learned how to make it, because she had always arrogantly assumed her mother would be around forever, but she had eaten it so many times that she was sure she could recreate it by memory and taste alone. This is it. Her favorite food. She would have to thank Lila for the inspiration later. This was the connection she had been afraid she would never find. It was a way to hold on to everything she had lost. "Can I borrow your wallet, Dad?" Excited for the first time in what felt like months, Anna rushed out to the neighborhood grocery store and picked out the ingredients she hoped would work. Curry leaves, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green chilies, red chilies, limes, honey, and, finally, a fresh shoulder of pork.

Prabhakar was waiting for me at the bus station, smiling happily through the rain. He led me through the people gathered at the bus station, past shops selling cheap household items and eating places where pakoras were being fried in bubbling oil. The brands and consumerism of urban India had disappeared, and although I felt an acute sense of displacement, I was oddly comforted by the rough utilitarianism of the place, which reminded me of the India I had grown up in. There were no cafes where I could hide my loneliness behind a cup of coffee and an open laptop, no shopping aisles where I could wander, picking out items that momentarily created an image of a better life. There was no escape here except through human relationships, and for that I was utterly dependent on Prabhakar speeding through the rain on his motorcycle.

Under Stars The sleep of this night deepens because I have walked coatless from the house carrying the white envelope. All night it will say one name in its little tin house by the roadside. I have raised the metal flag so its shadow under the roadlamp leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes. Now I will walk back thinking of the few lights still on in the town a mile away. In the yellowed light of a kitchen the millworker has finished his coffee, his wife has laid out the white slices of bread on the counter. Now while the bed they have left is still warm, I will think of you, you who are so far away you have caused me to look up at the stars. Tonight they have not moved from childhood, those games played after dark. Again I walk into the wet grass toward the starry voices. Again, I am the found one, intimate, returned by all I touch on the way.

Not everytime Self Love means pampering your wants, sometimes it just means to pat your self while knowing you did the right thing by choosing the path of Patience. Sometimes it's just waking up in the morning and telling your self, you've got this. Sometimes it is as simple as a cup of coffee or a hot shower after a realy tiresome day. Sometimes it's just watching the day pass by, while you take time to assimilate your thoughts and let your mind detangle in the simplicity of literally not doing anything. Sometimes it's the urge to find a reason and purpose to carry on, to feel alive, to live. Sometimes it's watching the sunset paint in a beautiful horizon and sometimes it's just keeping awake just to catch a glimpse of the rising Sun. Sometimes it's getting drenched in the rain or simply madly crazily dancing in the rain not caring of what or who passes by. Because who knows how long you got this dance of Life. Sometimes it's pulling yourself up and letting your heart know all that happens has a reason and you don't have to know all of it. Really you don't have to have all the answers, trusting the Universe is always the Only answer. Sometimes it's just reminding yourself that you can't change the past but value what your past has taught you, that you can't write your future entirely because circumstances always play a part but you can work through your present, you can live and make your present a gift, a present that your future would feel good about. Sometimes it's just knowing that disciplining Life is never easy but that always finds the lasting smile in the end. Sometimes it's just holding on with all your Soul to know that you have done your bit, to know that somewhere someday everything will make sense. Sometimes it's just to know that goals aren't always about achieving something but to be some more of your self by truly loving your self, a little bit more each passing day. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

When You're Not Here and When You Are" Waking early, alone, I crave the ripening hay in your field, the smell of weeds tangled in brine, and along the inland road, honeysuckle, sharp as juice sucked from raw crabs by the cove. Oh, the fine wet inside of your flowers in your field after rain. The acrostic of sifting earth with moist fingers, separating essence from essence, a pebble rolling in soil. I could lie around all day wanting the brush of your lips. Between your lips, the dark field meets a night sky. I am inside each ragged breath and the pause between. Your legs— a bridge to the twilight where, overhead, stars pulse. On such cold nights you take me as if I were spice in your coffee, stir me, your beautiful strong arms, your unbearable aching. I rely on the warmth of your voice to illuminate the dark. Like a forest that parts and cinches a road. A clasp undone. The cat purrs. A rustling as the leaves stir. In the yielding light, a pale sky warms. There. The grassy rise is splashed with rain.

Once I closed my eyes, it was like magic. I got to live world’s best life. Smiled at his smile. Wrote to him twenty times, and then knocked on wood when he replied. I didn’t wanna jinx it, I kept my fingers crossed. But secretly, I dreamt about our date at the coffee shop. I wished for him to find me in traffic on his way, Or maybe, on a stormy night of Valentine’s Day. This was the city of sweet sorrow, But when he walked in that jacket he borrowed, I dreamt of getting a new apartment near subway. Two blocks away from his favorite café. Wrapped in his arms, warm and safe, We’d sit across the fireplace, “I love you,” he’d say. I believe in miracles. I crossed my heart. I prayed, I was the one. It’s just so sweet when you’re blind in love. I imagined dancing with him in rain. Not rainbow, unicorns, fairytales, I dreamt about his blue jacket. I was pretending he didn’t see me cry, He already knew I was crazy for his smile. Then he broke my heart one more time, But I knocked on wood, because he replied. I believe in miracles. I crossed my heart. I knew I wasn’t not the one. But it’s still so sweet when you’re blind in love.

Do you know what makes me the happiest? When I see somebody's dream getting the light of morn. When I see the happy giggle of a child with the most enchanting twinkle in that eye. When I see the breaking dawn to watch the rising sun. When I see a smile walking along the horizon painting the crimson rays of a setting sun. When I see a sobbing heart finally taking a flight to a deep unknown within the canvas of its soul. When I see the rain touch the earth and caress its voice in a mirthful melody of stories unfinished. When I see a rainbow dancing along a silver lining of a roaring storm. When I see the radiance on a freckled face of an old woman holding the hand of her forever old man. When I see the moist mist of that coffee slowly becoming the poison of my muse. When I see my wandering heart falling in love with beautiful lands and strangers of soulful cord. When I see how Life is beautiful in all its breathtaking shortness marked in moments of happy surprise lulling across the door of my distant dream clutched in a canopy of dreams lived. And now when I see that beguiling smile of Life, I know how happiest that stardust shines which twinkles in my eye and the soul of my distant dream.

Had it not been for the mud and rain last October, we should have been in Moscow in no time. We have now learnt that the moment the rain comes, we must stop everything. When the war ends, the German people need not bother its head about what it is going to do during the next fifty years ! We shall become the most self-supporting State, in every respect, including cotton, in the world. The only thing we shall not have will be a coffee plantation—but we'll find a coffeegrowing colony somewhere or other! Timber we shall have in abundance, iron in limitless quantity, the greatest manganeseore mines in the world, oil—we shall swim in it! And to handle it all, the whole strength of the entire German man power! By God ! how right the peasant is to put his trust solely in the earth ! What's the use of talking about scenic beauty, when the earth is oozing with wealth ! In the future, it will be a pleasure to work ! Stalin is half beast, half giant. To the social side of life he is utterly indifferent. The people can rot, for all he cares. If we had given him another ten years, Europe would have been swept away, as it was at the time of the Huns. Without the German Wehrmacht, it would have been all up with Europe even now. The doors of the Continent would have been flung open for him by the idiocy of the masses. The worst of our winters is now behind us. In a hundred years' time there will be millions of German peasants living here.

I know you're a chocolate lover. I can always tell. I'm about to temper the chocolate. I have my own method; want to watch?" "Could I?" Inside my head, a little voice was reminding me that I had to get back to the office, but it was drowned out by the scent of chocolate, which flooded all my senses with a heady froth of cocoa and coffee, passion fruit, cinnamon and clove. I closed my eyes, and for one moment I was back in Aunt Melba's kitchen with Genie. I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working it to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me. Now the scent changed as Kim began to dip fruit into the chocolate: raspberries, blackberries, tiny strawberries that smelled like violets. She put a chocolate-and-caramel-covered slice of peach into my mouth, and the taste of summer was so intense that I felt the room grow warmer. I lost all sense of time.

When Bill was a fluffy white blob, the lassie rose and started to dry her thick hair, darkened to milky coffee with rain. Lyle struggled not to notice how the brisk movement of her arms jiggled her generous bosom against her thin blouse. He had a liking for small, curvy women. Or at least he did now. After draping his wet, crumpled towel over another chair, Lyle straightened and stared at his adorably disheveled companion. “Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?” She lowered the towel from her hair and regarded him with unreadable eyes. To his complete amazement, she dropped into a curtsy. “My name is Flora, sir. I’m a housemaid here.” With difficulty, he stifled a scoffing laugh. His intelligence mustn’t have impressed her. That lie wouldn’t convince the county’s greatest blockhead. Not least because she spoke with a clipped upper-class accent and her hands, while undoubtedly competent, were as smooth and unblemished as any lady’s. “Flora…” he said in a thoughtful voice, studying the wee besom and trying to make sense of this latest twist in their interactions. “Yes, sir,” she said, dropping her gaze with unconvincing humility. What the devil was she playing at, Sir John Warren’s beautiful only child? She’d kept him guessing from the first, which promised interesting times to come. Last week in his London club, her father had offered this girl to Lyle as his bride. Intrigued and faintly annoyed that she judged him daft enough to swallow this twaddle, Lyle decided to allow her enough rope to hang herself. Plastering an ingenuous smile on his face, he stepped closer. “I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Flora. My name is Smith. Ebenezer Smith.

Not every time Self Love means pampering your wants, sometimes it just means to pat yourself while knowing you did the right thing by choosing the path of Patience. Sometimes it's just waking up in the morning and telling yourself, you've got this. Sometimes it is as simple as a cup of coffee or a hot shower after a really tiresome day. Sometimes it's just watching the day pass by, while you take time to assimilate your thoughts and let your mind detangle in the simplicity of literally not doing anything. Sometimes it's the urge to find a reason and purpose to carry on, to feel alive, to live. Sometimes it's watching the sunset paint in a beautiful horizon and sometimes it's just keeping awake just to catch a glimpse of the rising Sun. Sometimes it's getting drenched in the rain or simply madly crazily dancing in the rain not caring of what or who passes by. Because who knows how long you got this dance of Life. Sometimes it's pulling yourself up and letting your heart know all that happens has a reason and you don't have to know all of it. Really you don't have to have all the answers, trusting the Universe is always the Only answer. Sometimes it's just reminding yourself that you can't change the past but value what your past has taught you, that you can't write your future entirely because circumstances always play a part but you can work through your present, you can live and make your present a gift, a present that your future would feel good about. Sometimes it's just knowing that disciplining Life is never easy but that always finds the lasting smile in the end. Sometimes it's just holding on with all your Soul to know that you have done your bit, to know that somewhere someday everything will make sense. Sometimes it's just to know that goals aren't always about achieving something but to be some more of yourself by truly loving yourself, a little bit more each passing day. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain...

coffee shop, the corner store, a tiny one-room, freestanding library, and the adorable little cabin in the woods that would be hers, rent-free, for the year of her contract. The town backed up to the amazing sequoia redwoods and national forests that spanned hundreds of miles of wilderness over the Trinity and Shasta mountain ranges. The Virgin River, after which the town was named, was deep, wide, long, and home to huge salmon, sturgeon, steel fish and trout. She’d looked on the internet at pictures of that part of the world and was easily convinced no more beautiful land existed. Of course, she could see nothing now except rain, mud and darkness. Ready to get out of Los Angeles, she had put her résumé with the Nurses’ Registry and one of the recruiters brought Virgin River to her attention. The town doctor, she said, was getting old and needed help. A woman from the town, Hope McCrea, was donating the cabin and the first year’s salary. The county was picking up the tab for liability insurance for at least a year to get a practitioner and midwife in this remote, rural part of the world. “I faxed Mrs. McCrea your résumé and letters of recommendation,” the recruiter had said, “and she

It was the unchanging nature of Orthodoxy that drew me in from the start, the structure being solid, built on something deeper than the layer of sand and dirt, build to weather the shifting of cultural things. I wanted that solidity, that history. It was exotic as it stood apart from the churches trying too hard to be coffee shops in the never-ending pursuit of being relevant to someone, to everyone. The foundation of this tradition was thick concrete, a protection from the driving rain and rising waters.

What do you mean?” “Hel is another world. Another planet. Aidas said so—months ago, I mean. The demons worship different gods than we do, but what happens when the worlds overlap? When demons come here, do their gods come with them? And all of us, the Vanir … we all came from elsewhere. We were immigrants into Midgard. But what became of our home worlds? Our home gods? Do they still pay attention to us? Remember us?” Ruhn rubbed his jaw. “This is some seriously sacrilegious shit for a lunchtime conversation. The postcards with your mom, I can handle. This? I need some coffee.” She shook her head and closed her eyes, unable to suppress the chill down her spine. “I just have this feeling.” Ruhn said nothing, and she opened her eyes again. Ruhn was gone. A rotted, veilless Reaper, black cloak and robes clinging to its bony body, rain sluicing down its sagging, grayish face, was dragging her unconscious brother across the drenched street. Its acid-green eyes glowed as if lit by Helfire. The rain must have covered the creature’s approach. The hair on her arms had been raised but she’d chalked it up to their dangerous conversation. No one was on the street—was it because everyone had somehow sensed the Reaper? With a roar, Bryce darted into the driving rain, but she was too late. The Reaper shoved Ruhn into the gaping sewer drain with too-long fingers that ended in cracked, jagged nails, and slithered in after him.

Esta noche llueve afuera. Pero aquí dentro hay calidez y silencio. Perfecto, ¿no?

The lamp was warming her sleek, French-twisted hair, and through the brown bitter smell of coffee I caught a quick scent of her shampoo, light, and sunshiny and sharp, the way cloud-berries on the fjord smell when the sun comes out after a quick summer rain, and I saw her clearly. An innocent who believed herself a cynic, one too innocent even to understand that the timing of that incendiary device had been carefully planned; that she had to have been as much the target as Lusk or the painting. Someone had tried to kill this woman who had read my record and asked for my help, and if she blundered around making noise, they would try again.

The entire room went quiet as a morgue. Only the sound of coffee percolating at the drink station could be heard, for nothing -not snow, not rain, not sauna-like heat - could keep these Lutherans from sipping a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall.

Her limbs function, and she finds this miraculous when she dwells on it. In fact, she finds plenty of things miraculous. Forcefully, she summons her best memories. That time on a red-eye bus when the driver used the intercom to contemplate, in campfire baritone, the wonder of his grandchildren, the way they validated his life as time well spent. As he lulled the passengers with stories, someone began to pass around a Tupperware of sliced watermelon, and a drunk man offered to share the miniature bottles of whiskey from his bag, and Joan felt such overwhelming affection for her species, she feared she would sacrifice herself to save it. A bad summer storm. Green sky, tornado warning, violent winds. Joan was downtown, leaving work early, briskly walking toward the parking garage where her station wagon waited. On the opposite end of the sidewalk, a large woman in her sixties collapsed. Immediately, two people rushed to the woman's side, gingerly tending to her, touching her shoulders and face, speaking to her as though she were their mother -- a cherished one -- and Joan understood that human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing. Dining alone on a blustery Easter night at the only Chinese restaurant in town. When she asked for the check, the waiter said, "It just started to rain. You're welcome to stay a little longer, if you want." Miraculous. Joan recalls the existence of dogs, craft stores, painkillers, the public library. Cream ribboning through coffee. The scent of the lilacs near her childhood home. Brown sugar on a summer strawberry. Her father's recovery from the tyranny of multigenerational alcoholism. The imperfect but true repossession of his life. The euphoria of the first warmth after winter, the first easy breath after a cold, the return of one's appetite after an anxiety attack. Joan has much to be happy about. She thinks: I am happy, you are happy, we are happy. These thoughts -- how she can force herself to have them. Miraculous.

Because there is nothing better than those quiet hours together. There is nothing better than the movie afternoons as a family, or bundling the kids into the car for a weekend on some rain-soaked British beach, sand in our toes and mugs of coffee in our hands. And there is absolutely nothing better than us sat opposite each other at a table eating and talking and laughing. Being with you makes me feel completely content.

The Bright Lights of Sarajevo After the hours that Sarajevans pass queuing with empty canisters of gas to get the refills they wheel home in prams, or queuing for the precious meagre grams of bread they’re rationed to each day, and often dodging snipers on the way, or struggling up sometimes eleven flights of stairs with water, then you’d think the nights of Sarajevo would be totally devoid of people walking streets Serb shells destroyed, but tonight in Sarajevo that’s just not the case The young go walking at stroller’s pace, black shapes impossible to mark as Muslim, Serb or Croat in such dark, in unlit streets you can’t distinguish who calls bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh. All take the evening air with stroller’s stride no torches guide them, but they don’t collide except as one of the flirtatious ploys when a girl’s dark shape is fancied by a boy’s. Then the tender radar of the tone of voice shows by its signals she approves his choice. Then match or lighter to a cigarette to check in her eyes if he’s made progress yet. And I see a pair who’ve certainly progressed beyond the tone of voice and match-flare test and he’s about, I think, to take her hand and lead her away from where they stand on two shell scars, where, in ‘92 Serb mortars massacred the breadshop queue and blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread lay on this pavement with the broken dead. And at their feet in holes made by the mortar that caused the massacre, now full of water from the rain that’s poured down half the day, though now even the smallest clouds have cleared away leaving the Sarajevo star-filled evening sky ideally bright and clear for bomber’s eye in those two rain-full shell-holes the boy sees fragments of the splintered Pleiades, sprinkled on those death-deep, death-dark wells splashed on the pavement by Serb mortar shells. The dark boy-shape leads dark girl-shape away to share one coffee in a candlelit café until the curfew, and he holds her hand behind AID flour-sacks refilled with sand

The Bright Lights of Sarajevo After the hours that Sarajevans pass queuing with empty canisters of gas to get the refills they wheel home in prams or queuing for the precious meagre grams of bread they’re rationed to each day, and often dodging snipers on the way, or struggling up sometimes eleven flights of stairs with water, then you’d think the nights of Sarajevo would be totally devoid of people walking streets Serb shells destroyed, but tonight in Sarajevo that’s just not the case – The young go walking at stroller’s pace black shapes impossible to mark as Muslim, Serb or Croat in such dark in unlit streets you can’t distinguish who calls bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh. All take the evening air with stroller’s stride no torches guide them, but they don’t collide except as one of the flirtatious ploys when a girl’s dark shape is fancied by a boy’s. Then the tender radar of the tone of voice shows by its signals she approves his choice. Then match or lighter to a cigarette to check in her eyes if he’s made progress yet. And I see a pair who’ve certainly progressed beyond the tone of voice and match-flare test and he’s about, I think, to take her hand and lead her away from where they stand on two shell scars, where, in 1992 Serb mortars massacred the breadshop queue and blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread lay on this pavement with the broken dead. And at their feet in holes made by the mortar that caused the massacre, now full of water from the rain that’s poured down half the day, though now even the smallest clouds have cleared away leaving the Sarajevo star-filled evening sky ideally bright and clear for bomber’s eye in those two rain-full shell-holes the boy sees fragments of the splintered Pleiades, sprinkled on those death-deep, death-dark wells splashed on the pavement by Serb mortar shells. The dark boy-shape leads dark girl-shape away to share one coffee in a candlelit café until the curfew, and he holds her hand behind AID flour-sacks refilled with sand.

(Verse 1) In the glow of a **dawn's early light**, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a **gentle breeze**, These little things, oh how they please. (Chorus) **Grab your hat and dance in the rain,** **Kick off your boots, forget the pain,** **Laugh with friends, under the sun's reign,** **Life's a sweet ride, hop on the train!** **Raise your glass to the stars above,** **Sing with heart, push and shove,** **Every little moment, fit like a glove,** **It's the simple things that we love!** (Verse 2) A **dog's wagging tail**, a **porch swing's sway**, The **colors of flowers** that brighten the day, A **song on the radio** that takes you back, To the **sweet old memories** that never lack. (Bridge) **Lights down low, we're just starting up,** **Fill up the tank, let's raise our cup,** **To the moments that feel like a live wire,** **Simple sparks igniting our fire.** **Sync to the beat of the city's pulse,** **Every little win, every single result,** **We're living loud in the here and now,** **In the simple life, we take our bow.** (Verse 3) **Under the wide-open sky so blue,** **Life's painting scenes, each one anew,** **A simple hello, a wave goodbye,** **In these little things, our dreams fly high.** **With every sunrise, we start again,** **Finding joy in the whisper of the wind,** **A hearty laugh, a warm embrace,** **In the simple life, we find our grace.** (Chorus) **Turn it up, let the bass line roll,** **Simple life's got that rock 'n' roll soul,** **Snap your fingers, tap your feet,** **Living for the moment, life's so sweet.** **Catch the vibe, let it take control,** **These little things are how we roll,** **From the heartland to the city's grip,** **It's the simple life that makes us flip.** (Verse 4) **The jukebox plays a tune that's bittersweet,** **Echoing tales of love and deceit,** **But in the neon glow, we find our truth,** **In simple things, we reclaim our youth.** **A twist of fate, a turn of the key,** **Life's full of surprises, as we can see,** **A chance encounter, a new beginning,** **In the simple life, we keep on winning.**

(Verse 1) In the glow of a **dawn's early light**, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a **gentle breeze**, These little things, oh how they please. (Chorus) It's the **simple joys** that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the **warmth of the sun's heat**, A **smile from a stranger**, a **child's laugh** so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. (Verse 2) A **dog's wagging tail**, a **porch swing's sway**, The **colors of flowers** that brighten the day, A **song on the radio** that takes you back, To the **sweet old memories** that never lack. (Chorus) It's the **simple joys** that make life sweet, The **harvest moon**, the **stars at your feet**, A **hand to hold**, a **heart to meet**, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. (Bridge) So take a moment, let's **make it last**, These **simple pleasures** are our repast, From the **morning sun** to the **evening's glow**, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. (Outro) So here's to the **little things**, the **joy they bring**, In the **quiet moments**, let your heart sing, For life's a **tapestry**, woven with care, In the **simplest joys**, we find love to share.

In the glow of a **dawn's early light**, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a **gentle breeze**, These little things, oh how they please. It's the **simple joys** that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the **warmth of the sun's heat**, A **smile from a stranger**, a **child's laugh** so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A **dog's wagging tail**, a **porch swing's sway**, The **colors of flowers** that brighten the day, A **song on the radio** that takes you back, To the **sweet old memories** that never lack. It's the **simple joys** that make life sweet, The **harvest moon**, the **stars at your feet**, A **hand to hold**, a **heart to meet**, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's **make it last**, These **simple pleasures** are our repast, From the **morning sun** to the **evening's glow**, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the **little things**, the **joy they bring**, In the **quiet moments**, let your heart sing, For life's a **tapestry**, woven with care, In the **simplest joys**, we find love to share.

In the glow of a dawn's early light, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a gentle breeze, These little things, oh how they please. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the warmth of the sun's heat**, A smile from a stranger, a child's laugh so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A dog's wagging tail, a porch swing's sway, The colors of flowers that brighten the day, A **song on the radio** that takes you back, To the*sweet old memories that never lack. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The*harvest moon, the stars at your feet, A hand to hold, a heart to meet, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's make it last, These*simple pleasures are our repast, From the*morning sun to the evening's glow, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the little things, the joy they bring, In the quiet moments, let your heart sing, For life's a tapestry, woven with care, In the*simplest joys, we find love to share.

In the glow of a dawn's early light, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a gentle breeze, These little things, oh how they please. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the warmth of the sun's heat, A smile from a stranger, a child's laugh so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A dog's wagging tail, a porch swing's sway, The colors of flowers that brighten the day, A song on the radio that takes you back, To the sweet old memories that never lack. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The*harvest moon, the stars at your feet, A hand to hold, a heart to meet, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's make it last, These*simple pleasures are our repast, From the*morning sun to the evening's glow, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the little things, the joy they bring, In the quiet moments, let your heart sing, For life's a tapestry, woven with care, In the*simplest joys, we find love to share.

In the glow of a dawn's early light, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a gentle breeze, These little things, oh how they please. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the warmth of the sun's heat, A smile from a stranger, a child's laugh so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A dog's wagging tail, a porch swing's sway, The colors of flowers that brighten the day, A song on the radio that takes you back, To the sweet old memories that never lack. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The*harvest moon, the stars at your feet, A hand to hold, a heart to meet, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's make it last, These simple pleasures are our repast, From the*morning sun to the evening's glow, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the little things, the joy they bring, In the quiet moments, let your heart sing, For life's a tapestry, woven with care, In the*simplest joys, we find love to share.

In the glow of a dawn's early light, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a gentle breeze, These little things, oh how they please. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the warmth of the sun's heat, A smile from a stranger, a child's laugh so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A dog's wagging tail, a porch swing's sway, The colors of flowers that brighten the day, A song on the radio that takes you back, To the sweet old memories that never lack. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The*harvest moon, the stars at your feet, A hand to hold, a heart to meet, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's make it last, These simple pleasures are our repast, From the morning sun to the evening's glow, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the little things, the joy they bring, In the quiet moments, let your heart sing, For life's a tapestry, woven with care, In the simplest joys, we find love to share.

In the glow of a dawn's early light, With the dew on the grass, shining so bright, A cup of coffee, a gentle breeze, These little things, oh how they please. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The sound of rain, the warmth of the sun's heat, A smile from a stranger, a child's laugh so wild, In every little thing, life's beauty is compiled. A dog's wagging tail, a porch swing's sway, The colors of flowers that brighten the day, A song on the radio that takes you back, To the sweet old memories that never lack. It's the simple joys that make life sweet, The harvest moon, the stars at your feet, A hand to hold, a heart to meet, In every little thing, life's beauty is complete. So take a moment, let's make it last, These simple pleasures are our repast, From the morning sun to the evening's glow, It's the little things that make our spirits grow. So here's to the little things, the joy they bring, In the quiet moments, let your heart sing, For life's a tapestry, woven with care, In the simplest joys, we find love to share.

want to lie in bed with him when it rains and listen to the water hit the roof. I find myself wondering how the coffee foam on his lip would taste on my tongue or if I could make him smile by blowing a raspberry on his belly. It’s not just want, Da.

Tea & Toast by Stewart Stafford Let me stop in this lay-by a moment, That I have tagged - Tea & Toast, A shimmering oasis frequented often, A soothing elixir one loves the most. It's as comforting as a warm bath, Enjoyed even when wracked with pain, As welcome as an old friend's smile, On thundery days of lashing rain. No matter if the tea is too sweet or burns, Greasy butter hijacked by sandpaper crumbs, There shall be no Boston Tea Party here, Our minuscule parole from routine doldrums. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

A smile dawns on his face, and I swoop down to kiss his lips as they part, and I swear I can savor the sweetness of everything that he is on them. He’s the first taste of coffee in the morning, the smell of rain on dry earth, the lights on a Christmas tree, and the sea wind in my face as I walk along the beach.

If their life together were a recipe, it would be this: tablespoons of late nights talking, a dash of fervent fingers across skin, and too many I love you's to count. Date nights and nights in and days spent in the sunshine or getting caught in the rain or sneaking cigarettes at family functions, and their wedding day. His homemade spaghetti sauce followed by her coffee cake. Their cat, Velcro. Their Greenwood home. Trust, laughter, tears, and pure joy, kneaded into one by years of togetherness.

I went for a walk in the rain with a stranger I met at a coffee shop.

Dining alone on a blustery Easter night at the only Chinese restaurant in town. When she asked for the check, the waiter said, “It just started to rain. You’re welcome to stay a little longer, if you want.” Miraculous. Joan recalls the existence of dogs, craft stores, painkillers, the public library. Cream ribboning through coffee. The scent of the lilacs near her childhood home. Brown sugar on a summer strawberry. Her father’s recovery from the tyranny of multigenerational alcoholism. The imperfect but true repossession of his life. The euphoria of the first warmth after winter, the first easy breath after a cold, the return of one’s appetite after an anxiety attack. Joan has much to be happy about. She thinks: I am happy, you are happy, we are happy. These

He was like a living lullaby. A softly spoken word. The smell of coffee and toast in the morning or a cozy fleece blanket. The rain pattering on the roof on a day where you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything.

Dear Present Me, There are sunrises over here. Coffee you will savor and not chug to stay awake. You smile more than not. When the rain does fall you allow it to hit your cheeks and know that is good for you. You found light over here in the midnight moon. I can’t wait for you to see. Love, Future Me

Sitting inside a warm and cozy cafe laced with soft music, plush furniture, the smell of fresh coffee, books and newspaper, eating brunch served on a table made of cedar, surrounded by exposed brick walls, while looking at the locals run in the rain during Christmas time. The perfect day

Outside, it had begun to rain. Over the steam of my milky coffee, I looked out the window to see umbrellas popping open on the sidewalk, some red or colorfully patterned, but mostly black. They looked like mushrooms sprouting on a log. Soon I would be down there, with all of those people-- I felt, bathetically, a spike of warmth for every person in the world. My body ached, but I felt strong. Maybe it was finally getting over the jetlag, or maybe it was feeling as if I had finally gone to the end of my loneliness, gone to its furthest expanse. I finished my coffee. I dressed for the day.

I don’t care how good your coffee is, it’s not going to make me forgive you for leaving me alone in a damn strip club!

Living Hurts [Verse] Woke up this morning to the sound of rain, Tears and thunder, just a different kind of pain. Got my coffee, took a sip, tried to feel alright, But the heartache's like a storm, rollin’ in tonight. [Verse 2] Saw an old photo, brought me right to my knees, Memories of a love, scattered like autumn leaves. In this small town where the years go by slow, Life is a mess, but it's the mess that helps us grow. [Chorus] Living hurts, oh but make it worth the pain, The tears fall like raindrops on a window pane. When the world bears down on your weary soul, Don't close your eyes, let the heartache make you whole. [Verse 3] The fields are overgrown with yesterday's dreams, Broken fences, shattered hopes, and silent screams. Yet there’s beauty in the wreckage, strength in the scars, In the darkest moments, we find who we really are. [Chorus] Living hurts, oh but make it worth the pain, The tears fall like raindrops on a window pane. When the world bears down on your weary soul, Don't close your eyes, let the heartache make you whole. [Bridge] Sometimes the hurtin's what keeps us alive, It's in the cracks where the light truly thrives. So stand in your sorrow, don't be afraid to feel, It’s the wounds that heal us, make the love real.

To Merveilleuse's surprise she comes across a large ram in a clearing, with gilt horns and a garland of flowers round his neck, reposing on a couch of orange blossom beneath a pavilion of golden cloth. But still, a ram, with his nose like an ink blot, flies on his white lashes, wool the color of curds. Around him a hundred gaily decked sheep graze not on grass but coffee, sherbet, ices, and sweetmeats, whilst partaking in games of basset and lansquenet. Soon he takes her into a cavern, which is a gate to his underworld kingdom. It has meadows of a thousand different flowers; a broad river of orange-flower water; fountains of Spanish wine and liqueurs. There are entire avenues of trees, stuffed with partridges better larded and dressed than you would get them at the finest Paris restaurants; quails, young rabbits, and ortolans. In certain parts, where the atmosphere appears a little hazy, it rains bisque d'écrevisses, foie gras, and ragout of sweetbreads. His palace is formed by tangled orange trees, jasmines, honeysuckle, and little musk-roses, whose interlaced branches form cabinets, halls, and chambers, all hung with golden gauze and furnished with large mirrors and fine paintings.

She leaves the coffee shop and walks down to the seafront, standing staring for a long time at the burnt-out remains of West Pier, derelict, rusting, but somehow still beautiful, looking like there may be life left in its broken remains yet, that it could magically be reborn from its own devastation, bigger and better than ever.

Almost as soon as I arrived back at Njoro, it began to rain for the first time in over a year. The sky went black, splitting open with a deluge that didn’t want to stop. Five inches fell in two days, and when the storm had finally cleared, and our long drought had ended, the land went green again. Flowers sprang across the plains in every colour you could think of. The air was thick with jasmine and coffee blossoms, juniper berries, and eucalyptus. Kenya had only been sleeping, the rain said now. All that had died could live again—except Green Hills.

I wonder if you look for me If you taste me in your last sip of coffee If you see me in rain puddles In a golden drop of honey for your tea I wonder if you see me in the airplane seats In the streetlamps over bridges In the cobblestone walkways Down the street to your job I wonder if you find me In the eyes of strangers Or hear my voice in birdsongs I wonder if you see me In walking down the street In every day life Miles apart The way I see you

I WAS ARRESTED IN ENO’S DINER. AT TWELVE O’CLOCK. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.

Loretta snuggled deeply into silken furs, trying to escape the persistent hand that shook her shoulder and the voice that called to her. Not her name, anyway. Blue Eyes. What kind of name was that? “Blue Eyes, you will be awake now. Home…you wish for home?” Home. Amy and Aunt Rachel. The gray down quilt. Pork slab and eggs for breakfast. Coffee on the porch when the sun peeked over the horizon and streaked the sky with crimson. Home. To laughter and love and safety. Oh, yes, she wished for home. “Be awake, little one. This Comanche will take you back. Loh-rhett-ah? Wake up, Hoos-cho Soh-nips, Bird Bones, you must eat and grow strong so you can go home. To your people and your wooden walls.” Loretta opened her eyes. She rolled onto her back and blinked. A dark face swam above her. Funny, but blinking didn’t bring him into focus. She reached out, curious, then thought better of it. “You will make the honey talk with me? We will make a treaty between us, one with no tiv-ope, writing. You will eat and grow strong, and I will take you to your people.” Honey talk. All lies, according to Hunter. Loretta peered up. She ran her tongue across her lips and tried to swallow. “H-home?” she croaked. “Huh, yes, Blue Eyes. Home. But you must eat so you can live to go back. And drink. For three days. Until you are strong again.” His fingertips grazed her cheek and trailed lightly into her hair. “Then this Comanche will take you.” “You will?” she rasped. “It is a promise I make. You will eat and drink?” Loretta closed her eyes. She had to be dreaming. But oh, what a lovely dream it was. To go home. To have Hunter volunteer to take her there. No need to worry that his wrath would rain upon her family. “No tricks. You swear it?” “No tricks.” His voice echoed and reechoed inside her head, loud, then like a whisper. She fought to open her eyes. The darkness was surrounding her again. “Then I will eat.

The owner of a coffee shop sat diminished in the back of his deserted establishment, waiting for patronage that had long since vanished.

He smiled. “What’s going on?” “Why does something have to be going on? Maybe I just missed you.” He gave me an uncharacteristically streetwise look. I had a feeling I knew where he’d picked it up. “Yeah, I missed you, too.” I wasn’t looking forward to the turn the conversation would take when I brought up Yukiko, and felt no hurry to get there. A waitress came by. Harry ordered a coffee and some carrot cake.

Zane awakened them both early. By the time Chase stirred, he had both their tents down and was on his third cup of coffee. Phoebe had promised she could act completely normal, but looking at her from across the fire, he wasn’t so sure. There was no way anyone could see her dreamy expression and not know something was different. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What? You keep looking at me. I know my makeup can’t be smudged. I’m not wearing any.” It didn’t matter; she was still beautiful. “You look different,” he told her. “Satisfied?” Color flared on her cheeks. “You’re only saying that because you know the truth.” “Uh-huh.” He doubted that, but maybe she was right. Or maybe the weather would be enough of a distraction to keep everyone from figuring out the truth. “How long is it going to rain?” she asked as she fingered a pole holding up the canvas sheet they put up to protect the fire and the seating area around it. “It sure got cold and damp in a hurry.” Zane shrugged. “No way to tell. The storm is supposed to hang around for a few days, but maybe it will blow over.” He hoped it would. Traveling in the rain wouldn’t be fun for anyone. And he couldn’t simply turn them around, head to the ranch and be there in time for lunch. They were at the farthest point from his house. It was a full two-day ride back. Phoebe finished her coffee. “I’m going to check and see if my things are dry,” she said as she stood. He nodded, then watched her go. Cookie had started a second campfire on the far side of camp. Phoebe’s clothes and sleeping bag were getting a dose of smoky warm air in an attempt to get them dry before they headed out. Zane knew the old man wouldn’t tease Phoebe. Instead he would save his comments for Zane.

Hey,” Chase said as he approached. “The rain sucks.” “Agreed.” His younger brother settled on a log. “I checked on the cattle. They’re fine. The clouds don’t look like there’s going to be any lightning or thunder, but they look plenty wet.” Zane nodded. “Storm’s supposed to last two days. I was hoping it would hold off until Saturday.” Chase sipped his coffee. “Everybody okay?” There was something about the question. Zane stared at him. “What do you mean?” “Nothing. Just checking.” Had Chase heard something in the night? Zane shook his head. Not possible. His tent had been some distance from the others, and the rain had blocked out a lot of noise. Nothing about his brother’s expression told what he was thinking. “We’re heading back today, right?” Chase said. “That’s the plan. I wish it wasn’t a two-day ride.” “There’s--” Chase stopped speaking and stared at his coffee. Zane knew what he’d been about to say. Reilly’s place. It was only about an hour’s ride. The old man would give them shelter until the worst of the storm passed, and even send out a few of his men to watch over the cattle until then. But Zane wasn’t about to impose on his neighbor. Not now and not ever. He glanced at the sky and wondered how long he could take a stand in weather like this. Whatever his issues with Reilly, his guests’ safety came first. “I better see how everyone’s doing,” he said as he tossed the rest of his coffee into the fire. “Before you go,” Chase said and held out something in his hand. “I wasn’t sure if you had enough with you.” Zane stared at the three condoms resting on his brother’s palm. Then he glanced at Chase, who was grinning. “Way to go, big brother.” Not knowing what to say, Zane rose and stalked off. But not before he took the condoms. He might be stubborn, but he wasn’t a fool.

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank. Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee.

And if you think far enough about it you know that a molecule of water that once fell from you in a tear or a drop of sweat or a drop of blood forty years ago might be back in your veins or in your bladder after having gone through the ground and down streams into the sea and around the world as vapor and clouds and back to where you are as rain or snow, and into you via your morning coffee, maybe even having passed through an Eskimo and a fox and an oak tree in the meantime.

He leaned toward her, slowly raising his hand to his hat and then doffing it quickly, as if taken by surprise, when she leaned forward to meet him. And this, she thought, of course, was what the whole evening had been for, the delightful feel of his rough cheek against her fingertips, his hands and lips and warm breath. The lingering taste of coffee in his mouth. Something awkward and lovely (a drumming on the roof, was it rain?) and absurd about Jimmy’s pal George moving his arm around her waist, pressing his hat into her back, and her fingers finding the newly trimmed

I didn’t know what I wanted. I trained at the Kodokan and reflected at quiet shrines and enjoyed my jazz clubs and coffee houses and whisky bars. I took long, nocturnal walks through the damascene city, and considered what I’d been part of, and what I’d almost caused. I wondered about my son and I missed Delilah. I thought about Horton. I made no decisions. I

It was raining again the next morning, a slanting gray rain like a swung curtain of crystal beads. I got up feeling sluggish and tired and stood looking out of the windows, with a dark, harsh taste of Sternwoods still in my mouth. I was as empty of life as a scarecrow's pockets. I went out to the kitchenette and drank two cups of black coffee. You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.

bothered him. Not that a hint of his thoughts showed on his face when he walked into The Rainier Room, one of the smaller meeting rooms. Half a dozen worried-looking executives were settling themselves around a mahogany conference table while Martha, Evan’s assistant, poured coffees and sparkling waters. Evan introduced himself and shook hands all around. These five men and one

I closed my eyes, listened to the music, and began sipping the coffee. It was ungodly strong but also delicious, and I realized someone had employed a lot of care to impart that much richness without bitterness or anything else creeping in to overpower the flavor. I had been expecting just a routine cup of coffee, and was struck by the notion that even in an everyday thing like coffee preparation, there was a way of doing things right, with care and maybe even devotion. Maybe this was part of what Miyamoto had been trying to describe as we had taken our tea at Nakajima. I wasn’t unfamiliar with what it meant to be ruthlessly squared away—ask any combat veteran about the care that goes into planning, training, weapons maintenance, and everything else on which your life might hang in the balance in the field—but this was different. Lion spoke of devotion brought to bear on small things, everyday things, things that otherwise might have seemed inconsequential or have been overlooked entirely, and like the confidence that characterized the place, I sensed this kind of everyday devotion was also something to which a person might want to aspire.

You only come when you’re working on a case?” “Something like that,” I said. “You would prefer I came more often?” He looked at me from over his non-steaming cup of coffee. “Yes,” he said simply, and I found his answer oddly touching. “So am I to assume you are working on a case now?” “You

Jack sat back and held his coffee in both hands. His hands, I saw, were filthy. There was even dirt caked under his nails. God had dirt under his nails? “Hurting others is a delicate business, Jim.” “What do you mean, exactly?” “Quite simply: do what you want to yourself. But the moment you cause harm to another—or discord of any type—you will need to reestablish a balance.” I

Not bad for a practice kiss,” he said in a casual voice that pissed her off. No way could he have felt nothing while her senses sizzled like a drop of water on a hot, oiled skillet. “And the Oscar goes to,” she muttered when he winked and walked out of the room. She was about to swear and take a kick at the coffee-table leg when she spotted him in the full-length mirror on the closet door standing ajar. He’d stopped just outside in the hall, and she watched his reverse image as he pulled at the fly of his jeans, no doubt adjusting for the evidence he wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted her to think he was. Despite the fact both of them being affected would be an even greater complication, Emma was smiling when she met up with him again in the front hall. “We can take my truck,” he told her in a terse voice that made her have to smother a bigger and much more smug smile. “No, we can’t. I have the extended cab and it might rain. We can’t throw Gram’s luggage in the bed to get wet.” “I’m driving.” She paused halfway out the front door. “Excuse me?” “You drive like a girl.” He held out his hand, presumably for her keys. “You’re an ass.” “We can stand here and argue about it. I’m sure your grandmother will understand.” “A sexist ass, no less.” He grinned and snatched her keys out of her hand before she could react. “Next time, you might want to actually meet the man you’re going to marry before you tell your family about him. Get in the truck. Honey.

You can just follow the instructions below: Start with a personal anecdote, maybe a funny story for instance. Move on to an observation about the weather. Give a positive comment about the flavour/ odour of the coffee/ water. Proceed to question them about they think about the news item. Once you’ve rain checked these topics, the next thing to do is make a note of the time. If

I WAS ARRESTED IN ENO’S DINER. AT TWELVE O’CLOCK. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town. The

How hard can it be to follow five black SUVs?” Serge leaned over the steering wheel. “Except we’re in Miami.” “So?” “Miami drivers are a breed unto their own. Always distracted.” He uncapped a coffee thermos and chugged. “Quick on the gas and the horn. No separation between vehicles, every lane change a new adventure. The worst of both worlds: They race around as if they are really good, but they’re really bad, like if you taught a driver’s-ed class with NASCAR films.” He watched the first few droplets hit the windshield. “Oh, and worst of all, most of them have never seen snow.” “But it’s not snow,” said Felicia. “It’s rain. And just a tiny shower.” “That’s right.” Serge hit the wipers and took another slug from the thermos. “Rain is the last thing you want when you’re chasing someone in Miami. They drive shitty enough as it is, but on top of that, snow is a foreign concept, which means they never got the crash course in traction judgment for when pavement slickness turns less than ideal. And because of the land-sea temperature differential, Florida has regular afternoon rain showers. Nothing big, over in a jiff. But minutes later, all major intersections in Miami-Dade are clogged with debris from spectacular smash-ups. In Northern states, snow teaches drivers real fast about the Newtonian physics of large moving objects. I haven’t seen snow either, but I drink coffee, so the calculus of tire-grip ratio is intuitive to my body. It feels like mild electricity. Sometimes it’s pleasant, but mostly I’m ambivalent. Then you’re chasing someone in the rain through Miami, and your pursuit becomes this harrowing slalom through wrecked traffic like a disaster movie where everyone’s fleeing the city from an alien invasion, or a ridiculous change in weather that the scientist played by Dennis Quaid warned about but nobody paid attention.” Serge held the mouth of the thermos to his mouth. “Empty. Fuck it—

The taste of good coffee, so deep and complex that it was almost a crime to describe it by a single name. The sound of rain falling on the pavement, the smell of petrichor and moistened loam. The color of a single raven’s feather in the sunlight, rainbows caught in ebony— ==========

sent him his list of dreamy-eyed ideals along with the birthday card she’d hand made with pressed flowers and a reminder to come home for the weekend to celebrate his milestone birthday. Thirty-five. Evan strode across the marble lobby leading to his law firm’s offices like a man in a hurry. In fact, he had ten minutes to spare before his next client meeting. A lot of people might use those minutes to grab a coffee, chat with a colleague or relax. Evan

A woman with long, blonde hair stood for a moment on the other side of the door. She looked similar to his date. Was she entering or leaving the coffee house? Before Paul could confirm her identity or stand and run after her, she strode away and disappeared in the crowd.

Well hello Liam.” She said like she was just seeing her husband for the first time in years, “You sure know how to make an entrance.” My heart tugged as I recalled stories she had shared with me. The night she first met Liam, it was pouring rain outside and she’d just been about to leave a coffee shop with her girlfriends. Liam opened the door and stepped in, his foot sliding on the wet tile floor and knocking into Carrie causing her to fall on him. They had laughed so hard it took them almost two minutes to finally get standing again and when they did he apologized and held out a hand to her, introducing himself. She took his hand and shook it lightly saying, “Well you sure know how to make an entrance Liam Taylor.” When she turned to leave, Liam looked at her and said, “You’re really going to leave after something brought us together like that?” Instead of leaving with her girlfriends that night, she decided to take a chance on a stranger and had another coffee with him. They talked until the shop closed and were married six months later. That first sentence she spoke to him became a joke in their relationship as well as their family once the boys were born. And now, our little Liam was carrying it on for her. “Sweetheart,

Who's that?" Playing an old game, Roy pointed at Juanita. Serena grinned and raced to plant a kiss on Juanita's cheek. "'Nita!" she cried triumphantly. Juanita pointed her toward Lily. "Quien es?" "Mama and baby!" Serena climbed into Lily's lap for a hug. As Cade bent his large form beneath the flap to join them, Lily pointed in his direction. "What's his name?" "Papa-padre-daddy," she crowed, laughing as Cade lifted her and sat down with her in his lap. She liked having several names for everything and everyone, and could chatter incessantly in two languages. Cade pointed at an unshaven Travis who glared blearily at their laughter as he untangled himself from his damp bedroll. "Que esta?" Unaware of the Spanish niceties as to being addressed as a "what" instead of "who," Travis glared at their cheerfulness until Serena flung herself at him and hugged his neck. "Snake-oil man!" she cried. Laughter erupted all around—despite the dreary rain, despite their fear and weariness. Welcome waves of amusement relieved some of the tension. Travis growled and tickled Serena until she ran to Roy for help, then grinning, he met Cade's eyes. "Can't you teach her something else to call me?" "Tio Travis?" Cade suggested. "Tio, tio!" Serena cried, sticking her tongue out at Travis and hiding behind Roy's back. "Why do I get the feeling that means 'snake oil' in Spanish?" Travis muttered, reaching for the tin cup of coffee Juanita offered him. "It means 'uncle.' Whether you know it or not, you've just adopted a niece. That means you get to carry her today." Cade took his cup and settled back cross-legged beside Lily. "I don't think I'm ready for the responsibilities of a family man. I'm not even certain how I got into this." Travis threw Lily a wry look. "You're more trouble than you're worth, you know." "Look who's talking." Undisturbed, Lily called Serena to come eat her breakfast. She had spent eight years raising Travis's son. It was time he took on a little responsibility. Travis shrugged his shoulders, unabashed. "You could have had a smart, good-looking man like myself and you chose that man-mountain over there. You lost your chance, Lily." Lily didn't need to reply to that. She merely looked at his rumpled curls and beard-stubbled face and grinned. Relieved that she could still find humor in the midst of her grief, Cade finished his food and leaned over to kiss her before rising to finish packing the horses. Lily watched him go with astonishment. Cade never made public displays of affection. Their

Srebrenka lived down at the end of my street. One morning I was supposed to get together with her for coffee, but it was raining like hell all day, so I never went. And that rainy afternoon, she actually did it: she committed suicide. But—when we Slavs do things, we do them big!—she committed not just single but quadruple suicide: She turned on the gas in the oven, cut her wrists, took sleeping pills, and hanged herself.

The night was cool and suddenly romantic. I could smell rain and leaf-fire smoke and coffee.

after they interviewed the owner, then she’d need the change in the cupholder in her car to loosen their lips. Giving it away now would only throw that chance away later.  Roper paused at the door and proffered it to her. ‘After you,’ he said. She knew he just didn’t want to touch the handle. She took hold of it and pulled back, wondering for a second if she should open it just enough to slip through so that Roper would have to grab it to let himself in.  She decided that was too petty for the morning of a murder investigation. Inside, the interior was cool. A short reception area led into the main hall — a double-height function room with a hard rubberised floor filled with sleeping bags and other homeless people. There were at least twenty, maybe thirty. It was difficult to tell at a glance. At the back of the room, a woman in her fifties with a long fleece vest on, the pockets heavy and sagging with keys and who knows what else, was filling cups of coffee from a big stainless steel dispenser, handing them to a line of people queuing silently, their heads bowed.  The air was humid inside and the low murmurings of the people talking around them created a soft background din that swallowed their footsteps. Roper looked around, not hiding his disdain very well.  But with the nights getting colder, these people deserved somewhere warm to hole up. The winter was vicious and it was closing in fast this year, bearing down on the city in waves of rain and frost.  The woman serving coffee leaned around the line and looked at them, squinting a little to make them out. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her reddish hair was curled back up over her head, spilling around her ears. Big and cheap gold earrings clung to her stretched lobes and shook a little as she looked them up and down, her face a mixture of trepidation and worry. Police turning up at a homeless shelter never meant anything good. She smiled warmly at the person at the front of the line, told him to help himself to coffee, and then walked around the table towards Roper and Jamie.  She held her hands wide and then clasped them together, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. Her earlobes wobbled and her heavy earrings caught the halogen strip lights overhead, glinting. ‘Can I, uh, help you?’ she asked.  Jamie and Roper flashed their badges to get it out of the way. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Roper, and this is my associate, Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson.’ ‘Mary Cartwright,’ she answered diligently. ‘Are you the owner of this — er — establishment, Mary?’ Roper asked less than tactfully.

I walk down to the river to see what it looks like in the rain. Cold drizzle punctuates the smooth green sheet of serene jade in an insistent pizzicato that leaves a succession of ring prints - like many time wet glasses quickly set down and then plucked off a coffee table without coasters. I bring an umbrella, but don't use it. The rain, I finally decide after careful consideration, doesn't mean me any harm. And so I give in to it.

overloaded horses bent backwards by the chisel of the mason who once sculpted an eternal now on the brow of the wingless archangel, time-deformed cherubim and the false protests, overweight bowels fallen from the barracks of the pink house carved with grey rain unfallen, never creaking, never opening door, with the mouth wide, darkened and extinguished like a burning boat floating in a voiceless sea, bottle of rum down threadbare socks, singing from pavement to pavement, bright iridescent flame, "Oh, my Annie, my heart is sore!", slept chin on the curb of the last star, the lintel illuminated the forgotten light cast to a different plane, ah the wick of a celestial candle. The piling up of pigeons, tram lines, the pickpocket boys, the melancholy silver, an ode to Plotinus, the rattle of cattle, the goat in the woods, and the retreat night in the railroad houses, the ghosts of terraces, the wine shakes, the broken pencils, the drunk and wet rags, the eucalyptus and the sky. Impossible eyes, wide avenues, shirt sleeves, time receded, 'now close your eyes, this will not hurt a bit', the rose within the rose, dreaming pale under sheets such brilliance, highlighting unreality of a night that never comes. Toothless Cantineros stomp sad lullabies with sad old boots, turning from star to star, following the trail of the line, from dust, to dust, back to dust, out late, wrapped in a white blanket, top of the world, laughs upturned, belly rumbling by the butchers door, kissing the idol, tracing the balconies, long strings of flowers in the shape of a heart, love rolls and folds, from the Window to Window, afflicting seriousness from one too big and ever-charged soul, consolidating everything to nothing, of a song unsung, the sun soundlessly rising, reducing the majesty of heroic hearts and observing the sad night with watery eyes, everything present, abounding, horses frolic on the high hazy hills, a ships sails into the mist, a baby weeps for mother, windows open, lights behind curtains, the supple avenue swoons in the blissful banality, bells ringing for all yet to come forgotten, of bursting beauty bathing in every bright eternal now, counteract the charge, a last turn, what will it be, flowers by the gate, shoe less in the park, burn a hole in the missionary door, by the moonlit table, reading the decree of the Rose to the Resistance, holding the parchment, once a green tree, sticking out of the recital and the solitaire, unbuttoning her coat sitting for a portrait, uncorking a bottle, her eyes like lead, her loose blouse and petticoat, drying out briefs by the stone belfry and her hair in a photo long ago when, black as a night, a muddy river past the weeds, carrying the leaves, her coffee stained photo blowing down the street. Train by train, all goes slow, mist its the morning of lights, it is the day of the Bull, the fiesta of magic, the castanets never stop, the sound between the ringing of the bells, the long and muted silence of the distant sea, gypsy hands full of rosemary, every sweet, deep blue buckets for eyes, dawn comes, the Brahmanic splendour, sunlit gilt crown capped by clouds, brazen, illuminated, bright be dawn, golden avenues, its top to bottom, green to gold, but the sky and the plaza, blood red like the great bleeding out Bull, and if your quiet enough, you can hear the heart weeping.

On the opposite end of the sidewalk, a large woman in her sixties collapsed. Immediately, two people rushed to the woman's side, gingerly tending to her, touching her shoulders and face, speaking to her as though she were their mother - a cherished one - and Joan understood that human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing. Dining alone on a blustery Easter night at the only Chinese restaurant in town. When she asked for the check, the waiter said, "It just started to rain. You're welcome to stay a little longer, if you want." Miraculous. Joan recalls the existence of dogs, craft stores, painkillers, the public library. Cream ribboning through coffee. The scent of the lilacs near her childhood home. Brown sugar on a summer strawberry. Her father's recovery from the tyranny of miltigenerational alcoholism. The im[peerfect bu true reposession of his life. The euphoria of the first warmth after winter, the first easy breath after a cold, the return of one's appetite after an anxiety attack. Joan has much to be happy about. She thinks: I am happy, you are happy, we are happy. These thoughts - how she can force herself to have them. Miraculous.

I like having a cigarette and a cup of coffee in the morning. And I like watching the rain through a big plate-glass window.

I wrote against the loneliness of three people becoming one each. I wrote about the high desert and the mountains and alpine meadows while I listened to the rain and drank coffee and lived among wide rivers and Douglas-fir and hawthorn trees. I wrote about motherhood and not spanking and trying not to yell. I wrote bigger things about being free and saying no and about god as something other than stained glass, robe-shrouded men, sin listing, and forgiveness on knees. I wrote about the matriarchy Mom whispered in my ear in the red dust about being in charge of the food source, seeking other gods, and then seeking nothing and untying the knots in my mind, pulling out poetic threads, removing what wasn’t needed.

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank. Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things.

I went out for my run. I liked to go early, then hit the coffee shop. It was a crappy day, gloomy, rainy, but I loved running in the rain. This was early November, the year before Greg died. I had a second, just a second when I saw him. So ordinary-looking, so pleasant, but I had that click. I had a panic button on my key chain. I even reached for it, but it was too late. I felt that shock of pain, then nothing works.” She had to stop a moment, had to breathe. “Nothing works,” she repeated. “Pain, shock, then numb, useless. I felt sick

Hey, we’ll let Huckleberry enjoy his lunch. Speaking of something, if you are in a better mood now, come with me to the Rainforest Room. I have something to show you. I wanted to wait until you calmed down because it means a lot to me, and I hoped you might be happy for me. Here, come with me.” He led her back to the previous room, which had amazing, rare rainforest plants in it. “Check this out!” He tossed her a magazine that said Horticultural Digest on the cover. Holly neatly caught it and opened it up to the dog-eared page. Blaring across the page in huge font was the title: WILLIAM SMITH, THE RAINMAKER OF SHELLESBY COLLEGE’S FAMOUS RAINFOREST ROOM. It was a five-page spread with big glossy photos of the Rainforest Room sprinkled throughout the article. “Five, count ‘em, five pages! That’s my record. Until now, they’ve only given me four. Check it out: I’m the Rainmaker, baby! Let it rain, let it rainnnn!” William stomped around in make-believe puddles on the floor. He picked up a garden hose lying along the side of the room and held it upright like an umbrella. “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.” Holly squealed with laughter and applauded. William jumped up on a large over-turned pot and shifted the hose to now play air guitar while he repeated the verse. “William, there is no air guitar in that song!” “There is now, baby!” Holly exploded again in laughter, clutching her sides. After a few more seconds of air guitar, William jumped off the pot and lowered his voice considerably. “Thank you, thank you very much,” William said in his Elvis impersonation. He now held the garden hose like a microphone and said, “My next song is dedicated to my beagle, my very own hound dog, my Sweetpea. Sweetpea, girl, this is for youuuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “Hound Dog.” “You ain’t nothing but a hound dogggg.” With this, he also twirled the hose by holding it tight two feet from the nozzle, then twirling the nozzle in little circles above his head like a lasso. “Work it, William! Work it!” Holly screamed in laughter. He did some choice hip swivels as he sang “Hound Dog,” sending Holly into peals of laughter. “William, stop! Stop! Where are you? I can’t see I’m crying so hard!” William dropped his voice even lower and more dramatically. In his best Elvis voice, he said, “Well, if you can’t find me darlin’, I’ll find you.” He dropped on one knee and gently picked up her hand. “Thank you, thank you very much,” he said in Elvis mode. “My next song, I dedicate to my one and only, to my Holly-Dolly. Little prickly pear, this one’s for youuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” “Take my hand, take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.” With that, he gave her hand a soft kiss. He then jumped up onto an empty potting table and spun around once on his butt, then pushed himself the length of the entire table, and slid off the far end. “Loose, footloose!” William picked up his garden-hose microphone again and kept singing. “Kick off the Sunday shoes . . .” He sang the entire song, and then Holly exploded in appreciative applause. He was breathing heavily and had a million-dollar smile on his face. “Hoo-wee, that was fun! I am so sweaty now, hoo-boy!” He splashed some water on his face, and then shook his hair. “William! When are you going to enter that karaoke contest at the coffee shop in town? They’re paying $1,000 to the winner of their contest. No one can beat you! That was unbelievable!” “That was fun.” William laughed. “Are in a better mood now?” “How can I not be? You are THE best!

I didn’t pause to consider whether those earlier, seemingly innocent conversations over coffee had in fact been more akin to job interviews. Nor did I wonder if we ever recognize the forks in the road we sometimes come to. They’re not common in life, and they’re never marked. Certainly, I didn’t recognize this one. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.

Great flocks of raindrops swelled and folded, and fell upon her like insects to a feast. She hadn’t thought to bring a raincoat; she was not well-prepared, and she hated that. Her mind seemed as stirred, dark and brooding, as the coffee-colored clouds.

The first time I thought I was in love with Mitchell, it was raining. Not in a romantic, Jane Austen kind of way—just a steady, inconvenient drizzle that made my feet wet and my hair frizz. We were standing outside a coffee shop after a long, overly intellectual conversation about some book he had bought about Japanese culture, and I remember laughing too loudly at something he said that wasn’t really funny. In hindsight, I realize I wasn’t in love—I was just relieved. Relieved that Mitchell Simon seemed to want me. Relieved that someone like him, with his carefully pressed shirts, strict routines and iron-clad opinions, had chosen me. I mistook that relief for love. I knew better now.

Ideally my penultimate day would be spent attending a giant beach party thrown in my honor. Everyone would gather around me at sunset, and the golden light would make my skin and hair beautiful as I told hilarious stories and gave away my extensive collection of moon art to my ex-lovers. I and all of my still-alive friends (which, let’s face it, will mostly be women) would sing and dance late into the night. My sons would be grown and happy. I would be frail but adorable. I would still have my own teeth, and I would be tended to by handsome and kind gay men who pruned me like a bonsai tree. Once the party ended, everyone would fall asleep except for me. I would spend the rest of the night watching the stars under a nice blanket my granddaughter made with her Knit-Bot 5000. As the sun began to rise, an unexpected guest would wake and put the coffee on. My last words would be something banal and beautiful. “Are you warm enough?” my guest would ask. “Just right,” I would answer. My funeral would be huge but incredibly intimate. I would instruct people to throw firecrackers on my funeral pyre and play Purple Rain on a loop.

They are not in charge of preparing her berth for its next occupant or, like the staff at the nearby control tower, assigning her a shipping lane for the journey out to the North Sea. They wish only to admire her and note her passage. They bring to the study of harbour life a devotion more often witnessed in relation to art, their behaviour implying a belief that creativity and intelligence can be as present in the transport of axles around the tip of the western Sahara as they are in the use of impasto in a female nude. Yet how fickle museum-goers seem by comparison, with their impatient interest in cafeterias, their susceptibility to gift shops, their readiness to avail themselves of benches. How seldom has a man spent two hours in a rain-storm in front of Hendrickje Bathing with only a thermos of coffee for sustenance. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Graham smiled and filled it all the way, then said, “What the hell” and did the same for his own. He took a sip and made an mmmmm sound. “That’s a Peruvian varietal, from Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco. I can’t get enough of their coffee. I have twenty pounds flown in every month, and it’s barely enough for my habit. Say, you’re from California, aren’t you?

I got tired,” I said, then tried to find the words that would make him understand. “I don’t mean tired like ‘it’s been a long day’ tired, either. Imagine that you just really don’t want to fucking get out of bed, like you can’t find the energy or the desire to start your day at all. Your body is heavy and your mind is fuzzy, but then you think ‘alright, if I get up, I can go get my favorite coffee’. So, you manage to pull your clothes on and make it down the block to get some; and they’re out. Then you leave and it starts raining, really raining, so now you’re wet and cold because you didn’t think to grab an umbrella. Then you make it home just to realize you’ve locked yourself out. So, you sit there on the front porch, coffee-less, soaked to the bone, thinking about how you didn’t even want to get out of bed in the first place. Can you imagine that feeling?” Scott took a moment to think about it, then just slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of a ‘what was the point?’ feeling, right?” “Exactly,” I said. “Now take that feeling, multiply it by about fifty, and that’s how I feel every day. That’s what getting out of bed is like, every day. Every single time, I have to find a reason. Even when it’s a good day, I still feel like I’m sitting out there in the rain, my back to a locked door. And I just think to myself that I wouldn’t have to feel that way if I was dead. That kind of tired is bone deep, and suffocating, and I hate it. And I hope you never have to really understand it, because it’s an awful way to be.

He met his day in the shower, washing his hair with shampoo that was guaranteed to have never been put in a bunny’s eyes and from which ten percent of the profits went to save the whales. He lathered his face with shaving cream free of chlorofluorocarbons, thereby saving the ozone layer. He breakfasted on fertile eggs laid by sexually satisfied chickens that were allowed to range while listening to Brahms, and muffins made with pesticide-free grain, so no eagle-egg shells were weakened by his thoughtless consumption. He scrambled the eggs in margarine free of tropical oils, thus preserving the rain forest, and he added milk from a carton made of recycled paper and shipped from a small family farm. By the time he finished his second cup of coffee, which would presumably help to educate the children of a poor peasant farmer named Juan Valdez, Sam was on the verge of congratulating himself for single-handedly saving the planet just by getting up in the morning.

I'll settle for the 6 horse on a rainy afternoon a paper cup of coffee in my hand a little way to go, the wind twirling out small wrens from the upper grandstand roof, the jocks coming out for a middle race silent and the easy rain making everything at once almost alike, the horses at peace with each other before the drunken war and I am under the grandstand feeling for cigarettes settling for coffee, then the horses walk by taking their little men away- it is funeral and graceful and glad like the opening of flowers.

I pulled off the highway and found a motel. The room stunk of cigarettes and the shower was caked in mildew. I pulled the brown and maroon paisley comforter off, threw it on the floor, and doused my hands in sanitizer. I slept on top of towels I laid across the sheets. In the morning I grabbed a stale doughnut and weak coffee from the free continental breakfast in the lobby and headed out to my truck, where I discovered my bike had been stolen from the back. In my sleep-deprived state the night before, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of my bike being stolen. I slumped into the driver’s seat and finished my disgusting doughnut. Still in the motel parking lot, I shaved with an electric shaver using the side mirror of the truck. After one half of my face was shaved, the batteries died. There are just certain times in life when every fucking thing we do seems so arbitrary. Why in the world did I shave my face to begin with? I drove to a drugstore and got more batteries and a lot of weird looks from shoppers. At checkout, the gum-popping, teenage female clerk smirked at me. I decided to let humor prevail. “Do you like this look?” I smiled and pointed to my face. “That’s dope.” “Thanks, dawg.” “Peace out,” she said, and I walked out. I didn’t turn around but I held up a peace sign and said, “Word.

I close my eyes and say a prayer, That tonight you’ll be held. I lift you up to the spare pair Of shoulders that can’t be felled. Tonight, as you sleep, I pray your worries are wiped away. May you wake up and not weep, For joy will come in the day. Let the bridge cover your worries, Let the rain wash away the fear. Let the shoulders hold your furies. Let the sunshine bring you cheer. Shoulders holding you high. Arms shielding you from danger. May you never have to cry, On top of the mountainous glacier.

Now if only I had time to capitalize on this new fame. What would I do with it? Start a merch store? I can just see the t-shirts now. I fucked the Demon King, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. Coffee cups that say, Villain Fucker and Proud. Keep Calm and Fuck a Villain. Okay, I might actually buy that coffee cup.

Rain in Brazil leads to lower coffee prices in the wholesale market, and coffee retailers like Starbucks enjoy higher profit margins and a rising stock price.

Coffee tastes like whiskey to me, and whiskey tastes like poison. Rain wakes me up. Cigars drive me to the deepest recesses of my mind. The moon gives me a thousand dreams.You are all of these at the same time.My body functions like a machine, even when I think about you. You are like coffee and whiskey. They both quicken my heartbeat, They both make my mind race, Both of them are like spaceships launching me from the present to past and future lives or different universes.Your voice is like a morning when you wake to the sound of rain. I like rain. After endless nights and failed attempts at sleep, rain sounds like a child who finally sleeps after a thousand years.You are like the finest cigar ever made. When I smoke it, I feel like Virginia Woolf writing her last words. You are the far side of the moon. You are my never-ending journey. #ArashGhadir #arash_ghadir

Dina raised her arms, palms facing upward, the teacup held high. The forest grew dark around them. Like any sliver of moonlight was vanishing, leaving them in absolute black. Only it wasn't for long, as a pool of silvery substance--- not liquid but not air either--- began to swarm around her, like it was raining moonlight. She turned her face to the sky and was bathed in a milky glow. Sometimes she forgot how much joy raw magic brought her. The rivers of moonlight twisted in rivulets across her body, until they all collected into the teacup in a shimmering liquid. For a moment, the air around them was scented like fresh coffee and spices. Dina met Scott's eyes, testing him. He couldn't speak, but he wasn't running away. With an ecstatic smile, Dina flicked the teacup, flinging moonlight outward, splashing it against the trunks of trees, coating ferns and shrubs near the path like silver luminescent paint. As it landed, it began to fade, until--- within seconds--- full night had returned. Dina set the teacup down on the front step of the cottage.