Scattering Of Sunlight Quotes

Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.

As we drove back to Enugu, I laughed loudly,above Fela's stringent singing. I laughed because Nsukka's untarred roads coat cars with dust in the harmattan and with sticky mud in the rainy season. Because the tarred roads spring potholes like surprise presents and the air smells of hills and history and the sunlight scatters the sand and turns it into gold dust. Because Nsukka could free something deep inside your belly that would rise up to your throat and come out as freedom song. As laughter.(299)

The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.

I looked up through a scatter of fluttering leaves silhouetted against the rosy autumn sunset.

Up the river, toward the city, buttery sunlight bounced off the Temple of the Dawn, scattering color into the air like a jewel.

In the city of flesh I travel without maps, a worried tourist: and Ottilie was a very Venice. I stumbled lost in the blue shade of her pavements. Here was a dreamy stillness, a swaying, the splash of an oar. Then, when I least expected it, suddenly I stepped out into the great square, the sunlight, and she was a flock of birds scattering with soft cries in my arms.

The Devil's Rose You would never take a rose from a beast. If his callous hand were to hold out a scarlet flower, his grip unaffected by pricking thorns, you would shrink from the gift and refuse it. I know that is what you would do. But the cunning beast will have his beauty. He hunts not in hopeless pursuit, for fear would have you sprint all the day long. Thus, he turns toward the shadows and clutches the rosebud, crunching and twisting until every delicate petal is detached. One falls not far from your feet, and you notice the red spot in the snow. The color sparkles in the sunlight, catching your curious eye. No beast stands in sight; there is nothing to fear, so you dare retrieve the lone petal. The touch of temptation is velvet against your thumb. It carries a scent you bring to your nose, and both eyes close to float on a cloud of perfume. As your lashes lift, another scarlet drop stains the snow at a near distance. A glance around perceives no danger, and so your footprints scar the snowflakes to retrieve another rosy leaflet as soft and sweet as the first. Your eyes shine with flecks of golden greed at the discovery of more discarded petals, and you blame the wind for scattering them mere footprints apart. All you want is a few, so you step and snatch, step and snatch, step and snatch. Soon, there is enough velvet to rub against your cheek like a silken kerchief. Your collection of one-plus-one-more reeks of floral essence. Distracted, you jump at the sight of the beast in your path. He stands before his lair, grinning without love. His callous hands grip at thorns on a single naked stem, and you look down at your own hands that now cup his rose. But how can it be? You would never take a rose from a beast. You would shrink from the gift and refuse it. He knows that is what you would do.

In January in Northern Russia, everything vanishes beneath a deep blanket of whiteness. Rivers, fields, trees, roads, and houses disappear, and the landscape becomes a white sea of mounds and hollows. On days when the sky is gray, it is hard to see where earth merges with air. On brilliant days when the sky is a rich blue, the sunlight is blinding, as if millions of diamonds were scattered on the snow, refracting light. In Catherine's time, the log roads of summer were covered with a smooth coating of snow and ice that enabled the sledges to glide smoothly at startling speeds; on some days, her procession covered a hundred miles.

It is done," Jasper said, rising. "You are husband and wife." They day turned to night.... "This is an omen. A powerful one." Jasper shook his head in wonder. "A good one from the King of Gods." The unnatural clouds started to scatter, and sunlight broke through as Jasper smiled. "Nyktos, even asleep, approves of this union.

The morning rays beam particle-scattered sunlight across the room.

This is an omen. A powerful one.” Jasper shook his head in wonder. “A good one from the King of Gods.” The unnatural clouds started to scatter, and sunlight broke through as Jasper smiled. “Nyktos, even asleep, approves of this union.

Soon Rapunzel's hair spilled out around her like a silver pond sparkling in the sunlight, or a frozen one in the moonlight. When the breeze shifted the branches above, the sun hit her tresses and its light scattered everywhere. The whole area under the tree was illuminated with shifting, dappled scintillations. Rapunzel wondered what it would look like from far away, from high above: would she look like a funny star? Were all the stars out there maidens with strange hair?

Little bright-topped waves rocked the boat gently on the way to pattering up against the seawalls. A salty wind blew from the land out over the water. The town of Crisfield lay in the sunlight before them, bleached white as the oyster shells scattered around the ground.

Last Night’s Moon," “When will we next walk together under last night’s moon?” - Tu Fu March aspens, mist forest. Green rain pins down the sea, early evening cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy toques of low tide, pillow lava’s black spill indelible in the sand. Unbroken broken sea. — Rain sharpens marsh-hair birth-green of the spring firs. In the bog where the dead never disappear, where river birch drown, the surface strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked moss that eats bones, keeps flesh; the fermented ground where time stops and doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud. — In the autumn that made love necessary, we stood in rubber boots on the sphagnum raft and learned love is soil–stronger than peat or sea– melting what it holds. The past is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth, termite house, soaked sponge. It rises, keloids of rain on wood; spreads, milkweed galaxy, broken pod scattering the debris of attention. Where you are while your body is here, remembering in the cold spring afternoon. The past is a long bone. — Time is like the painter’s lie, no line around apple or along thigh, though the apple aches to its sweet edge, strains to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line closest to touch. Lines of wet grass on my arm, your tongue’s wet line across my back. All the history in the bone-embedded hills of your body. Everything your mouth remembers. Your hands manipullate in the darkness, silver bromide of desire darkening skin with light. — Disoriented at great depths, confused by the noise of shipping routes, whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain, a thousand miles through cold channels; clicking thrums of distant loneliness bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight, a solar forest at the surface. Transfixed in the dark summer kitchen: feet bare on humid linoleum, cilia listening. Feral as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’ pointillism, the infrasonic hum of the desert heard by the birds. The nighthawk spans the ceiling; swoops. Hot kitchen air vibrates. I look up to the pattern of stars under its wings.

The Jealous Sun The sunlight whispers in my ear, his breath a warm, sultry tease. I shrink and duck beneath a tree. My eyes squint to scan the horizon for a glimpse of the wind, but there are no ashen ribbons or golden waves in sight. He is missing. Trickling, tinkling notes reflect loudly off a chandelier of glimmering droplets. The rain sings to me, and I shield my eyes, admiring the song. Far off in my western view I expect to see snow, but the sun grows hot with jealousy, knowing this. He refuses my snowman a place to set. My sight drops to search for the man in the moon. Normally he rises dripping wet from out of the lake, often pale and naked, supple and soft to my caressing gaze. On rare occasions he dons a pumpkin robe as luminous as fire. Today he is draped in silks of the saddest blue. My heart weeps as he steals up and away. An army of stars in shining armor come to my aid, and they force the sun into the ground—a temporary grave. I am fed with a billion bubbles of laughter until I feel I will burst. But the stars will not stop giving, and I will not stop taking. A kiss brands my cheek, and I turn abruptly to find my snowman. He landed safely in the dark. We hide from the man in the moon behind a curtain of flurries to dance on polished rainbows and feast on stars until I hear a fire-red growl. The sun claws its way out of the soil, and everyone scatters.

Evie's hair had been piled at the crown of her head in a mass of gleaming red curls and fastened with pearl-tipped pins. The scattering of amber freckles across her nose only increased her appeal, as if nature had given in to a moment of whimsy and sprinkled a few flecks of extra sunlight over her. Evie leaned into her partial hug as if she was seeking comfort. "Aunt F-Florence says I look like a f-flaming torch with my hair pinned up like this," she said. Daisy scowled at the comment. "Your aunt Florence should hardly make such statements when she looks like a hobgoblin." "Daisy, hush," Lillian said sternly.

But I am a paladin,” Cordelia cried. “It’s awful, I loathe it— don’t imagine that I feel anything other than hated for this thing that binds me to Lilith. But they fear me because of it. They dare not touch me—” “Oh?” snarled James. “They dare not touch you? That’s not what it bloody looked like.” “The demon at Chiswick House—it was about to tell me something about Belial, before you shot it.” “Listen to yourself, Cordelia!” James shouted. “You are without Cortana! You cannot even lift a weapon! Do you know what it means to me, that you cannot protect yourself? Do you understand that I am terrified, every moment of every day and night, for your safety?” Cordelia stood speechless. She had no idea what to say. She blinked, and felt something hot against her cheek. She put her hand up quickly—surely she was not crying?— and it came away scarlet. “You’re bleeding,” James said. He closed the distance between them in two strides. He caught her chin and lifted it, his thumb stroking across her cheekbone. “Just a scratch,” he breathed. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Daisy, tell me—” “No. I’m fine. I promise you,” she said, her voice wavering as his intent golden eyes spilled over her, searching for signs of injury. “It’s nothing.” “It’s the furthest thing from nothing,” James rasped. “By the Angel, when I realized you’d gone out, at night, weaponless—” “What were you even doing at the house? I thought you were staying at the Institute.” “I came to get something for Jesse,” James said. “I took him shopping, with Anna—he needed clothes, but we forgot cuff links—” “He did need clothes,” Cordelia agreed. “Nothing he had fit.” “Oh, no,” said James. “We are not chatting. When I came in, I saw your dress in the hall, and Effie told me she’d caught a glimpse of you leaving. Not getting in a carriage, just wandering off toward Shepherd Market—” “So you Tracked me?” “I had no choice. And then I saw you—you had gone to where your father died,” he said after a moment. “I thought—I was afraid—” “That I wanted to die too?” Cordelia whispered. It had not occurred to her that he might think that. “James. I may be foolish, but I am not self-destructive.” “And I thought, had I made you as miserable as that? I have made so many mistakes, but none were calculated to hurt you. And then I saw what you were doing, and I thought, yes, she does want to die. She wants to die and this is how she’s chosen to do it.” He was breathing hard, almost gasping, and she realized how much of his fury was despair. “James,” she said. “It was a foolish thing to do, but at no moment did I want to die—” He caught at her shoulders. “You cannot hurt yourself, Daisy. You must not. Hate me, hit me, do anything you want to me. Cut up my suits and set fire to my books. Tear my heart into pieces, scatter them across England. But do not harm yourself—” He pulled her toward him, suddenly, pressing his lips to her hair, her cheek. She caught him by the arms, her fingers digging into his sleeves, holding him to her. “I swear to the Angel,” he said, in a muffled voice, “if you die, I will die, and I will haunt you. I will give you no peace—” He kissed her mouth. Perhaps it had been meant to be a quick kiss, but she could not help herself: she kissed back. And it was like breathing air after being trapped underground for weeks, like coming into sunlight after darkness.

The more Clayton eyed the terrain of this country, the more he could believe in its prophecy. The clear streams sparkled in sunlight even in the shade of century-old cottonwoods, as if the water were privy to some source of internal light that blinked at will on its surface. The lonely rock outcrops scattered throughout the plain, broke up the grassy expanses like islands dotting the sea of prairie. To the west, the juniper-tufted cliffs rose abruptly, standing like the ramparts of a gigantic fortress that appeared to reach the sky. Each of these features was like an individual ingredient taken from an ancient recipe that existed before any man had set foot on this land.

Absence " Then the birds stitching the dawn with their song have patterned your name. Then the green bowl of the garden filling with light is your gaze. Then the lawn lengthening and warming itself is your skin. Then a cloud disclosing itself overhead is your opening hand. Then the first seven bells from the church pine on the air. Then the sun's soft bite on my face is your mouth. Then a bee in a rose is your fingertip touching me here. Then the trees bending and meshing their leaves are what we would do. Then my steps to the river are text to a prayer printing the ground. Then the river searching its bank for your shape is desire. Then a fish nuzzling for the water's throat has a lover's ease. Then a shawl of sunlight dropped in the grass is a garment discarded. Then a sudden scatter of summer rain is your tongue. Then a butterfly paused on a trembling leaf is your breath. Then the gauzy mist relaxed on the ground is your pose. Then the fruit from the cherry tree falling on grass is your kiss, your kiss. Then the day's hours are theatres of air where I watch you entranced. Then the sun's light going down from the sky is the length of your back. Then the evening bells over the rooftops are lovers' vows. Then the river staring up, lovesick for the moon, is my long night. Then the stars between us are love urging its light.

WARRIOR LIGHT Jafar, Muhammad's cousin, was a warrior of concentrated light. When he rode up to a walled city, it was no more to him than a gulp of water in his dry mouth. This happened at Mutah. No one went out to fight him. "What's to be done?" the king asked his clairvoyant minister. "If you strap on your sword with this one," replied the advisor, "also wrap your shroud around you!" "But he's only one man!" "Ignore the singularity. Look with your wisdom. He gathers multitudes, as stars dissolve in sunlight." Human beings can embody a collective, a majesty of spirit, which is not like having a name or a body. A herd of onagers may display a thousand antler points; then a lion comes to the edge of their field: they scatter.

He had panicked. Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking. Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable. Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety. He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again. Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface. Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.

It’s so cute, isn’t it?” Arianna said dreamily. “Are we seeing the same creature? It’s like a demented goat with a bone growth.” “You’re going to hurt its feelings! Now shut up and sit on the ground.” I did as I was told, sticking my ankle out. “How is it going to heal me?” I asked, suddenly nervous. I pictured it licking my ankle and gagged. I could only imagine the diseases unicorn saliva had or what it carried around in its filthy, matted beard and hair. Bleating reproachfully, it stared at me with its doleful, square-pupiled brown eyes. “Oh, fine. Great, glorious unicorn, beloved of oblivious girls everywhere, please heal me. Now, if you don’t mind.” With one last bat of its gunk-crusted eyelashes, it lowered its head and put its stubby horn against my ankle. I cringed, waiting for pain, but felt instead tingling warmth spread out, almost like having butterflies in my stomach. Only in my ankle. Butterflies . . . with rainbows. The feeling of wholeness and well-being spread up my leg and into my entire body, and I couldn’t stop grinning. The forest was beautiful! The tree branches, naked against the brightening sky, held unimaginable wonders. The hard-packed dirt beneath me was a treasure trove of unrealized potential, lovely for what it could eventually give life to. I could sit out here forever and just enjoy nature. I was so happy! And rainbows! Why did I keep thinking of rainbows? Who cared! Rainbows were totally awesome! And the unicorn! I beamed at it, reaching out my hand to stroke it. There was never a creature more beautiful, more majestic. I’d spend the rest of my life out here, and we’d prance around the forest, worship the sunlight, bathe in the moonlight, and . . . I shook my head, scattering the idiotic warm fuzzies that had invaded. “Whoa,” I said, shoving the unicorn’s head away. “That’s enough of that.” I looked down at my ankle, which was now completely healed, not even a scar left. I fixed a stern look on the unicorn. “I am not going to frolic in an eternal meadow of sunshine and moonlight with you, you rotten little fink. But thanks.” I smiled, just enough to be nice without being too encouraging, and patted it quickly on the head. I was going to soak that hand in bleach. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” I stood, testing my ankle and relieved with the utter lack of pain. I still had an irrational desire to do an interpretive dance about rainbows, but it was a small price to pay for being healed.

The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; though it was put together of all contrasting things — oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp — yet all these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them!

Camera You want this instant: nearly spring, both of us walking, wind blowing walking sunlight knitting the leaves before our eyes the wind empty as Sunday rain drying in the wormy sidewalk puddles the vestiges of night on our lightscratched eyelids, our breezy fingers you want to have it and so you arrange us: in front of a church, for perspective, you make me stop walking and compose me on the lawn; you insist that the clouds stop moving the wind stop swaying the church on its boggy foundations the sun hold still in the sky for your organized instant. Camera man how can I love your glass eye? Wherever you partly are now, look again at your souvenir, your glossy square of paper before it dissolves completely: it is the last of autumn the leaves have unravelled the pile of muddy rubble in the foreground, is the church the clothes I wore are scattered over the lawn my coat flaps in a bare tree there has been a hurricane that small black speck travelling towards the horizon at almost the speed of light is me

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

Mike continued to walk unhurriedly toward the crowd until he loomed up in the stereo tank in life size, as if he were in the room with his water brothers. He stopped on the grass verge in front of the hotel, a few feet from the crowd. "You called me?" He was answered with a growl. The sky held scattered clouds; at that instant the sun came out from behind one and a shaft of golden light hit him. His clothes vanished. He stood before them, a golden youth, clothed only in his own beauty, beauty that made Jubal's heart ache, thinking that Michelangelo in his ancient years would have climbed down from his high scaffolding to record it for generations unborn. Mike said gently, "Look at me. I am a son of man." . . . . "God damn you!" A half brick caught Mike in the ribs. He turned his face slightly toward his assailant. "But you yourself are God. You can damn only yourself and you can never escape yourself." "Blasphemer!" A rock caught him just over his left eye and blood welled forth. Mike said calmly, "In fighting me, you fight yourself... for Thou art God and I am God * . . and all that groks is God-there is no other." More rocks hit him, from various directions; he began to bleed in several places. "Hear the Truth. You need not hate, you need not fight, you need not fear. I offer you the water of life-" Suddenly his hand held a tumbler of water, sparkling in the sunlight. "-and you may share it whenever you so will . . . and walk in peace and love and happiness together." A rock caught the glass and shattered it. Another struck him in the mouth. Through bruised and bleeding lips he smiled at them, looking straight into the camera with an expression of yearning tenderness on his face. Some trick of sunlight and stereo formed a golden halo back of his head. "Oh my brothers, I love you so! Drink deep. Share and grow closer without end. Thou art God." Jubal whispered it back to him. . . . "Lynch him! Give the bastard a nigger necktie!" A heavy-gauge shotgun blasted at close range and Mike's right arm was struck off at the elbow and fell. It floated gently down, then came to rest on the cool grasses, its hand curved open in invitation. "Give him the other barrel, Shortie-and aim closer!" The crowd laughed and applauded. A brick smashed Mike's nose and more rocks gave him a crown of blood. "The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. First you must learn to control yourself. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes." Another shotgun blast was followed by two more shots. One shot, a forty-five slug, hit Mike over the heart, shattering the sixth rib near the sternum and making a large wound; the buckshot and the other slug sheered through his left tibia five inches below the patella and left the fibula sticking out at an angle, broken and white against the yellow and red of the wound. Mike staggered slightly and laughed, went on talking, his words clear and unhurried. "Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened." "God damn it-let's stop this taking the Name of the Lord in vain!"- "Come on, men! Let's finish him!" The mob surged forward, led by one bold with a club; they were on him with rocks and fists, and then with feet as he went down. He went on talking while they kicked his ribs in and smashed his golden body, broke his bones and tore an ear loose. At last someone called out, "Back away a little so we can get the gasoline on him!" The mob opened up a little at that waning and the camera zoomed to pick up his face and shoulders. The Man from Mars smiled at his brothers, said once more, softly and clearly, "I love you." An incautious grasshopper came whirring to a landing on the grass a few inches from his face; Mike turned his head, looked at it as it stared back at him. "Thou art God," he said happily and discorporated.

choose each footfall—a twisted ankle was certain death now—and I saw the tread marks before Kolya. I grabbed his sleeve to stop him. We were at the edge of a vast clearing in the woods. The glare of sunlight off the hectares of snow was bright enough that I had to shield my eyes with my hand. The snow had been corrugated by dozens of tank treads, as if an entire Panzer brigade had passed through. I didn’t know treads the way I knew airplane engines, couldn’t tell a German Sturmtiger’s from a Russian T-34’s, but I knew these weren’t our tanks. We would have already broken the blockade if we had this much armor in the woods. Gray and brown heaps lay scattered across the snow. At first I thought they were discarded coats, but I saw a tail on one, an outstretched paw on another, and I realized they were dead dogs, at least a dozen of them. We heard another howl and finally we saw the howler, a black-and-white sheepdog dragging itself off the field, its front legs doing the work its hind legs could not. Behind the wounded animal was a blood-smeared trail more than a hundred meters long, a red brushstroke slapped across a white canvas.

From John Haines: I recall an afternoon in October many years ago, when I stood on the edge of that high overlook near Maclaren Summit in the Alaska Range and gazed down onto the wide sweep of the Maclaren River Basin. The cold, late afternoon sun came through broken clouds, and the tundra below me was patched with sunlight. The river, a thin, silvery-blue thread, twisted through the subdued autumn coloration of the land. I was entirely alone at that moment…the land seemed incredibly vast and empty. far below me, a few scattered caribou were feeding in the meadows of the river basin…I felt as if I were looking down on a landscape elementary to our being, and that nothing had occurred to change it since the last of the continental ice melted from the earth, and the first grasses and shrubs began to grow.

covered my face while I dusted it, and watched the little particles flicker in the sunlight. Even after having a greatly minute size, the particles still manage to scatter the light, make themselves visible. Instead of letting the mighty sunlight overpower, they let it beautify their presence. 

Those eyes—a gift from your father, aren’t they? Your real father.” I froze. “And that’s not the only thing he gave you, is it?” My head whipped back to her. “What are you talking about?” “That mother of yours thought she could hide it from the world. Thought she could hide it from you with that little powder of hers. But secrets like that can’t stay kept forever.” Her focus turned skyward, taking in the scattered beams of bloody sunlight around us. “And it appears the Kindred are done waiting.

You don't want their botched text. You want the breath, pulse and footfall of the girl who dashed out into sunlight like today's through where maybe that door was – then slammed it behind her.

His eyes sparkle, not the sparkle of sunlight over water or stars scattering the sky. There is nothing gentle or inviting in the look he gives me. It’s closer to flint sparkling steel in the seconds before flame.

In the library, Arthur switches on the newly installed, ornate brass wall sconce that instantly washes the room in an artificial sunlight. He can never get over it, get used to it even, such abruptness of light from dark. It is something that bothers him. When he was a child, the warmth of a candle or a lantern brought the family closer, around a table, away from the shadows. But these new lights scatter people like mice, drive them to other rooms to hide and separate. Machines now in the streets that prevent human contact and deter conversation. These things, new conveniences, he thinks will change people. The future more hurried, more complex; the one his son, Jack, will have to navigate.

He looked at the tree that was such a good home. Its smooth, spacious branches of silvery tan that stretched wide and far-reaching in knotted, twisted curves and delicate bunches of spreading leaves. How important this had become to him. Here, sitting not too high and not too low, he had seen the world in absolute clarity for the first time, the days emerging as if purified from nights of a clean and brilliant blackness. The sunlight coming in through the leaves at daybreak, shifting and flickering, breathing its fire-breath upon the bark, falling now and then upon Sampath, whom it treated as if he were not the solid being that he was, scattering him like water … He felt weightless here, rocked by this lambent light, lapped by the swell of flower and grass, of leaves as rich as fruit, being warmed to their different scents. All about him the hills rose darkly up into a sky that stretched like a sea, white-stippled and warm, to the very rim of his eye. How strangely it made him feel, Sampath thought, how strangely he thought of beauty. He was greedy for it, insatiably greedy. He could watch it constantly and never could he do it justice …

Rusya belonged to monsters once. The towns of men were tiny, scattered along waterways. In the endless acres of forest so dense and dark they never saw sunlight, that is where the monsters dwelled. That is where they bred. A thousand demons spawned in the wilds of Rusya, and spread …

I remember that the droplets sparkled in the sunlight, as if an angel scattered gems in the way of her ascending soul.

Her warm breath against my skin, tickling the little hairs at my nape, should not have excited me as much as it did. She kept close by me, smelling like lilacs and sunlight, and looking like a dream--- back when my dreams were still good. She was all buttoned-up and stern and accountanty, and Hades, I wanted to unbutton her, wanted to mess up that pristine desk of hers and lay her down on it, papers and books scattering to the floor. Could she tell just by looking at me how badly I wanted to bury my face in her hair? To bury my teeth in her neck, too--- if she allowed it? I could all but taste the way her blood would coat my tongue. Delicious, and so pure. The truth was, I wanted to do a lot of things with Amelia that she hadn't signed up for when we started this arrangement, and had given no indication she wanted with me now. It didn't matter that our kiss had felt like all the good things the centuries had taken from me. Companionship, and warmth. Closeness with another person. My role in her life was limited in duration and scope. And that was how it had to stay, unless and until she said otherwise.

The Way the Cards Fall " Why did you stay away so long? I’ve buried another husband, since I last saw you holding to the horizon. I hear where you now live it snows year-round. The pear & apple trees have even missed you– dead branches scattered about like war. Come closer, my eyes have grown night-dim. Across the field white boxes of honeybees silent as dirt, silent as your missent postcards. Evening sunlight’s faded my hair, the old stable’s slouched to the ground. I dug a hole for that calico, Cyclops, two years ago. Now milkweed & blackberries are keepers of the cornfield. That’s how the cards fall; & Anna, that beautiful girl you once loved enough to die over & over again for, now lives in New Orleans on both sides of Bourbon Street.

The Bear The day animals and the night animals got together to decide what they would do about the sun, which then came and went whenever it liked. The animals resolved to leave the problem to fate. The winning group in the game of riddles would decide how long the world would have sunlight in the future. They were still talking when the sun approached, intrigued by the discussion. The sun came so close that the night animals had to scatter. The bear was a victim of the general flurry. He put his right foot into his left moccasin and his left foot into his right moccasin, and took off on the run as best he could. According to the Comanches, since then the bear walks with a lurch. (132)

So what can we generalize about Victorian vampires? They are already dead, yet not exactly dead, and clammy-handed. They can be magnetically repelled by crucifixes and they don’t show up in mirrors. No one is safe; vampires prey upon strangers, family, and lovers. Unlike zombies, vampires are individualists, seldom traveling in packs and never en masse. Many suffer from mortuary halitosis despite our reasonable expectation that they would no longer breathe. But our vampires herein also differ in interesting ways. Some fear sunlight; others do not. Many are bound by a supernatural edict that forbids them to enter a home without some kind of invitation, no matter how innocently mistaken. Dracula, for example, greets Jonathan Harker with this creepy exclamation that underlines another recurring theme, the betrayal of innocence (and also explains why I chose Stoker’s story “Dracula’s Guest” as the title of this anthology): “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will.” Yet other vampires seem immune to this hospitality prohibition. One common bit of folklore was that you ought never to refer to a suspected vampire by name, yet in some tales people do so without consequence. Contrary to their later presentation in movies and television, not all Victorian vampires are charming or handsome or beautiful. Some are gruesome. Some are fiends wallowing in satanic bacchanal and others merely contagious victims of fate, à la Typhoid Mary. A few, in fact, are almost sympathetic figures, like the hero of a Greek epic who suffers the anger of the gods. Curious bits of other similar folklore pop up in scattered places. Vampires in many cultures, for example, are said to be allergic to garlic. Over the centuries, this aromatic herb has become associated with sorcerers and even with the devil himself. It protected Odysseus from Circe’s spells. In Islamic folklore, garlic springs up from Satan’s first step outside the Garden of Eden and onion from his second. Garlic has become as important in vampire defense as it is in Italian cooking. If, after refilling your necklace sachet and outlining your window frames, you have some left over, you can even use garlic to guard your pets or livestock—although animals luxuriate in soullessness and thus appeal less to the undead. The vampire story as we know it was born in the early nineteenth century. As

I’d live on the moon, Cat thought, dots of sunlight scattering across the living room floor. Couldn’t be any worse than here.

Here are my steps to reaching optimal Feng Shui for manifesting money: Step 1: Clear out or cover up all of your broken items. Step 2: Keep things organized and in their place. Scattered items equals scattered energy. Step 3: Open up and clear the space. Move big items toward the walls or get rid of them. Give space to allow the energy to flow. Step 4: Invite nature to take part. Open up to natural sunlight and keep a plant or two around. Step 5: Implement the Money Jar Method. This process requires you to get however many jars you’d like (ideally 3-5) for all the places you frequent the most throughout the day. Label each of these jars with a phrase such as “I am abundant in money and in wealth” or “I am connected to infinite money abundance.” Fill these jars with real money, checks, and symbols of wealth, and let your subconscious mind do the rest. Every time you notice the jar, you’re reminded of your abundance.

Seven Days" First Day I sat in a room that was almost dark, looking out to sea. There was a light on the water that released a rainbow which landed near the stairs. I was surprised to discover you at the end of it. Second Day I sat in a beach chair surrounded by tall grass so that only the top of my hat showed. The sky kept shifting but the sunlight stayed. It was a glass pillar filled with bright dust, and you were inside. Third Day A comet with two tails appeared. You were between them with your arms outspread as if you were keeping the tails apart. I wished you would speak but you didn't. I knew then that you might remain silent forever. Fourth Day This evening in my room there was a pool of pink light that floated on the wooden floor and I thought of the night you sailed away. I closed my eyes and tried to think of ways we might be reconciled; I could not think of one. Fifth Day A light appeared and I thought the dawn had come. But the light was in the mirror and became brighter the closer I moved. You were staring at me. I watched you until morning but you never spoke. Sixth Day It was in the afternoon but I was sure there was moonlight trapped under the plates. You were standing outside the window, saying, "Lift them up." When I lifted them up the sea was dark, the wind was from the west, and you were gone. Seventh Day I went for a walk late at night wondering whether you would come back. The air was warm and the odor of roses made me think of the day you appeared in my room, in a pool of light. Soon the moon would rise and I hoped you would come. In the meantime I thought of the old stars falling and the ashes of one thing and another. I knew that I would be scattered among them, that the dream of light would continue without me, for it was never my dream, it was yours. And it was clear in the dark of the seventh night that my time would come soon. I looked at the hill, I looked out over the calm water. Already the moon was rising and you were here. Mark Strand, The Georgia Review Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer 1975), pp. 363-365

It was only when Rowan brushed it with his fingertips and scattered some of the dust that she saw, to her surprise, a glint of something green. It was like a seam of moss, or a glimpse of forest through a gap in the castle stones. For some reason she couldn't fully understand, her own heart quickened to match Rowan's. "Wish me luck," Rowan whispered to the child, whose cries had subsided into whimpers. Rowan drew a deep breath, and pushed against the wall. Biddy felt the magic shiver under his skin and through his fingertips, and the schism in the wall glowed in response. Something was trickling through from the other side--- not quite light, not quite substance, like the glint of dust motes dancing in a sunbeam with no sunbeam and no dust. The air about them stirred, and Biddy's heart caught. She was seeing magic. In all her life, she had only had it described to her, and felt the movement of it in the air. Now, in Rowan's memory, it shimmered the gentle green gold of sunlight through leaves.

His hab module was a shoebox, big enough for him to stand up straight. He drenched it with light from metal halide lamps, hot white light like sunlight, to keep the blues away. The walls were racks that held recovery units, designed for easy replacement. There were wires and cables and ducts running along the corners of the hab module and across the walls. A robot spider called Charlotte ran along the wires, cleaning and sucking dust out of the air. Despite his best efforts, the whole place was soon messy and cluttered, like an overused utility room. Gear was scattered everywhere, stuck to the floor and walls and ceiling with straps and Velcro. If he brushed against a wall he could cause an eruption of gear, of pens and softscreens and clipboards and data discs and equipment components, and food cans and toothpaste and socks.

The air turned syrupy, slow, flecked with dust. The last few seconds before a battle. And with the last bow pulled free, he reached inside, and amidst a whirring, chaotic clatter of wings and feet and talons and a high-pitched twittering and it’s all happening at once, the man pulls an enormous, enormous hawk out of the box and in a strange coincidence of world and deed a great flood of sunlight drenches us and everything is brilliance and fury. The hawk’s wings, barred and beating, the sharp fingers of her dark-tipped primaries cutting the air, her feathers raised like the scattered quills of a fretful porpentine. Two enormous eyes. My heart jumps sideways. She is a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an illuminated bestiary. Something bright and distant, like gold falling through water. A broken marionette of wings, legs and light-splashed feathers.

The room had the seedy, humiliated look of a bar seen in direct sunlight, sticky and thoroughly initialed by knife- and claw-wielding patrons. The floor was paved with old round millstones lightly covered with a scattering of straw, the chinks between them filled in with packed dirt. Neither

The woman whistled louder, and the stones grew brighter. Akos pursed his lips, hiding his face as he tried a whistle of his own. The light in the stones near him went white, with the warmth of sunlight. Was this as close to sunlight as Ogra ever got? He glanced at Cyra. She winced, the currentshadows lively across the back of her neck, but she was smiling at him. “What?” he said. “You’re excited,” she said. “This planet is probably going to kill us, and you love it.” “Well,” he said, feeling defensive, “it’s fascinating, that’s all.” “I know,” she said. “It’s just, I don’t expect other people to love the odd and dangerous things I love.” She draped her arm around his waist, her touch light, so he didn’t feel her weight. He leaned into her, slinging his own arm over her shoulders. Her skin went blank again at his touch. Then he heard it--the low rumble, like the planet itself was growling, and at this point, he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that it was. “Come along, ice-dwellers,” the Ogran woman sang, her voice ringing. She reached down and stuck her pinkie through something--a metal loop in the dark floor. With a flick of her wrist, a trapdoor pulled up from the ground, scattering dust. Akos spotted narrow stairs that disappeared into nothingness. Well, he thought, time to summon some Shotet mettle.

Shai knelt on the floor amid a pattern of scattered pages, each filled with cramped script or drawings of seals. Behind her, morning opened her eyes, and sunlight seeped through the stained glass window, spraying the room with crimson, blue, violet.

To launch his new project, Frank, feverish with enthusiasm, had hired the Grand Auditorium, the heart of Landsberg. The crater’s dome was a blue ceiling above Xenia, a thick double sheet of quasiglass, cable-stayed by engineered spiderweb, filled with water. The water shielded Landsberg’s inhabitants from radiation and served to scatter the raw sunlight. During the long lunar day, here in Landsberg, the sky was royal blue and full of fish: goldfish and carp. After five years, Xenia still couldn’t get used to it.

The shorter wavelengths, those that we sense as violet and blue light, are more efficiently scattered than the longer wavelengths—those that we sense as orange and red light. When we look up on a cloudless day and admire the blue sky, we are witnessing the preferential scattering of the short waves in sunlight. ... So why is the sunset red? The red of the sunset is what's left of sunlight after the air scatters the blue away. Since the atmosphere is a thin shell of gravitationally bound gas surrounding the solid Earth, sunlight must pass through a longer slant path of air at sunset (or sunrise) than at noon. Since the violet and blue waves are scattered even more during their now-longer slant path through the site than when the Sun is overhead, what we see when we look towards the sun is the residue—the waves of sunlight that are hardly scattered away at all, especially the oranges and reds. A blue sky makes a red sunset.

Sunshine... The sun is shining brightly, Its golden light covered the entire house.. A cool breeze blows from the terrace, This time, the room conveyed a special feeling.. Two cups of cappuccino, vanilla biscuits and the smell of incense that was scattered.. But the only thing that made the room more beautiful was you.. I looked at your shining face, Your short brown hair was golden under the warm sunlight, your beautiful eyes sparkled, your cheeks were red and your pastel lips looked so soft... I don't know what beauty means anymore...! For me, you are the meaning of beauty.. but how..? How can you.. be so beautiful...?

In sunlight and in shadow are piled high the sea's sweetest, choicest fruits: mussels in their sombre purple shells; lobsters, rich and brown; fish, scarlet and gold and green. Lemons, freshly plucked from near gardens, are scattered among the fragrant pile, and here and there trail long sprays of salt, pungent seaweed. The faint smell of ail comes to you gently from unseen kitchens, the feeling of bouillabaisse is everywhere, and tender anticipation illumines the faces of the passers-by. Great is the pretence of activity in the harbour and in the streets; at a glance, mere paltry traffic might seem the city's one and only end. But Marseilles' true mission, the sole reason for its existence, is that man may know how goodly a thing it is to eat bouillabaisse at noon on a warm summer day.