Scully Quotes

Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?

When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left?

You were never a drizzle, Penn Scully. When I fell for you, you came beating down, and I felt you everywhere. You were hail.

Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind's capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don't; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us.

They'll have to bring in Mulder an' Scully, because there ain't no CSI on the planet that'll ever be able to explain this.

Why can’t we have one of those quick pregnancies like Bella and Edward? Gwen from Torchwood. Scully. Deanna Troi. Or even Cordelia when that demon impregnated her. Twenty-four hours later bam! Demon child.

Sometimes tradition and habit are just that, comfortable excuses to leave things be, even when they are unjust and unworthy. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--the cranks and radicals turn out to be right. Sometimes Everyone is wrong.

This is not written for the young or the light of heart, not for the tranquil species of men whose souls are content with the simple pleasures of family, church, or profession. Rather, I write to those beings like myself whose existence is compounded by a lurid intermingling of the dark and the light; who can judge rationally and think with reason, yet who feel too keenly and churn with too great a passion; who have an incessant longing for happiness and yet are shadowed by a deep and persistent melancholy—those who grasp gratification where they may, but find no lasting comfort for the soul.

The only thing worse than cruelty is delegated cruelty.

Scully was appallingly gregarious—so outgoing she was practically incoming.

Factory farming isn't just killing: It is negation, a complete denial of the animal as a living being with his or her own needs and nature. It is not the worst evil we can do, but it is the worst evil we can do to them.

Our very existence refuses your laws and your science, your religions and your philosophies.

Scully was doing the driving, which she preferred. Mulder knew only two speeds: fast and faster.

When we shrink from the sight of something, when we shroud it in euphemism, that is usually a sign of inner conflict, of unsettled hearts, a sign that something has gone wrong in our moral reasoning.

Let's just call things what they are. When a man's love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice.

Tradition with all its happy assumptions and necessary evils, all of its content majorities and stout killers, is not always a reliable guide.

Frohike... had a long-standing crush on Dana Scully, but basically it was all talk. Mulder suspected Frohike would turn into a jittering mass of nerves if Scully ever consented to go out with him.

Scully,' [Mulder] said, his voice quiet and serious, 'with the... unorthodox explanations I often find when studying the evidence, I know you're always skeptical-but every time you're at least fair to me. You respect my opinion, even when you don't agree with it.' He looked at his hands. 'I don't know if I've ever told you, but I really appreciate that.' She looked at him and smiled. 'You've told me, Mulder. Maybe not in words... but you've told me.

Scully liked neatness and order. This office was her notion of a nightmare. She had no idea how Mulder ever found anything he wanted. But he always seemed to.

I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals, that what can be imagined can be achieved, that you must dare to dream, but that there's no substitute for perseverance and hard work and teamwork because no one gets there alone; and that, while we commemorate the... the greatness of these events and the individuals who achieve them, we cannot forget the sacrifice of those who make these achievements and leaps possible.

I want us to cool down for a while before we end up on horses' said Scully. 'What?' Hank asked. 'A definition of confusion.' Mulder explained, hands clasped behind his head. 'He jumped up on his horse and rode off in all directions.' He winked. 'Scully likes wise sayings like that. She hoardes fortune cookies you know.

In the face of scary things, knowledge was always a comfort to me. No matter what the subject was, if I could find a book or two about it, I could squash any anxiety that it might provoke. As my heroine Scully once said, “The answers are there, you just have to know where to look.

If ya let hornets rest in yer outhouse, it's hard t'get pissed when they buzz down and sting yer ass.

It started with a lemonade And ended with my heart This, my pretty reckless rival, is how our screwed-up story starts

I'm okay,' [Mulder] said, shifting over to make room for Scully. 'Just thinking.' 'Out here, that'll get you pneumonia.' 'Is that a doctor's truth thing?'... 'No, it's cold, that's what it is. God, Mulder, why can't you ever have a mood someplace warm?

You're supposed to be sleeping' Mulder didn't jump, didn't turn his head. 'The day you figure out how to turn off my brain Scully let me know.' He shook his head, but carefully. 'Amazing isn't it?' 'Your brain?' She leaned her forearms on the railing. 'It's okay but I wouldn't call it amazing.

Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it.

If we are defined by reason and morality, then reason and morality must define our choices, even when animals are concerned. When people say, for example, that they like their veal or hot dogs too much to ever give them up, and yeah it's sad about the farms but that's just the way it is, reason hears in that the voice of gluttony. We can say that what makes a human being human is precisely the ability to understand that the suffering of an animal is more important than the taste of a treat.

Really?' [Scully said]... 'And you think that makes sense?' 'It does to me.' [said Mulder]. 'Of course it does,' she said flatly. 'Whatever was I thinking of.

Scully could see that Mulder might be a nice guy. Well-meaning. Talented. With his heart in the right place. But his head was definitely screwed on wrong.

...she kept hoping Mulder and Scully would kiss each other well and good. Having a relationship vicariously through fantasy and excellent scripting was all Aggie had at the moment - and to be honest, it wasn't all that bad. Her imagination was always better than reality...

When I was doing preliminary research on this case, I remembered the story about Tlazolteotl.' [Mulder] glanced at the old archaeologist. 'Am I pronouncing it correctly? It sounds like I'm swallowing a turtle.

Intellectuals are a pretty unique species all by themselves, given to advocating things out of sheer brazenness that they could not themselves stomach if they were ushered in to witness the scene.

I didn't know you were a techie, Mulder.' said Scully... 'I used to fool around with ham radios when I was a kid,' Mulder said, not looking up from his work. 'Let me guess why,' said Scully. 'Ever succeed in making contact with a spaceship?'... 'No,' said Mulder. 'But it wasn't from lack of trying.

The Empire State, a lonely dinosaur, rose sadly at midtown, highest tower, tallest mountain, longest road, King Kong's eyrie, meant to moor airships, alas.

Never! Never, Marge. I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called ‘City Fathers’ who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?

It's hot,' [Mulder] said, dropping on the bench beside [Scully]. 'It's July, Mulder,' Garson reminded him. 'It's New Mexico. What did you expect?' 'Heat I can get at home. An oven I already have in my apartment.

Animals have this way of constantly confronting us with ultimate questions - about truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, God and sanctity and the soul - forcing us to define ourselves and our relationship to the world.

I can look at her face all fucking day. I wish it were a legit job so I could make money doing it. I would put in all the extra hours and become a billionaire within a year.

A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t learned to ask.” Those words were spoken by Special Agent Dana Scully,

And the...' [Mulder] stumbled several times, making [Scully] smile, before he managed, 'Sangre Viento?' He winced when he heard himself; his Spanish was still lousy.

Scully and I will be back to relieve you in eight hours if Tooms doesn't show,' Mulder promised. 'Right here.' 'You got it,' Kennedy said. Then he added in an undertone, 'Spooky.

Some readers will say that animals awaken fantasy, if not heresy, in those who attach moral significance to them. Yet often I think it is the more violent among us who are living out the fantasy, some delusion in which everything in nature is nothing and all is permitted.

Scully-' 'I screwed up.' Her hands again. 'Damnit, I screwed up.' 'Nope' [Mulder] said... 'If I was dead, then you would have screwed up.' She saw the grin. 'Then I'd have to haunt you.' 'Mulder that's not funny.' 'But you don't believe in ghosts and goblins...

Wildlife, we are constantly told, would run loose across our towns and cities were it not for the sport hunters to control their population, as birds would blanket the skies without the culling services of Ducks Unlimited and other groups. Yet here they are breeding wild animals, year after year replenishing the stock, all for the sole purpose of selling and killing them, deer and bears and elephants so many products being readied for the market. Animals such as deer, we are told, have no predators in many areas, and therefore need systematic culling. Yet when attempts are made to reintroduce natural predators such as wolves and coyotes into these very areas, sport hunters themselves are the first to resist it. Weaker animals in the wild, we hear, will only die miserable deaths by starvation and exposure without sport hunters to control their population. Yet it's the bigger, stronger animals they're killing and wounding--the very opposite of natural selection--often with bows and pistols that only compound and prolong the victim's suffering.

The elephants we have seen taunted and tormented and slaughtered by the likes of Safari Club do not have time to wait while the world's ethicists work out some centuries-long paradigm shift in moral thought.

It is true, as we are often reminded, that kindness to animals is among the humbler duties of human charity--though for just that reason among the more easily neglected. And it is true that there will always be enough injustice and human suffering in the world to make the wrongs done to animals seem small and secondary. The answer is that justice is not a finite commodity, nor are kindness and love. Where we find wrongs done to animals, it is no excuse to say that more important wrongs are done to human beings, and let us concentrate on those. A wrong is a wrong, and often the little ones, when they are shrugged off as nothing, spread and do the gravest harm to ourselves and others.

So you and the lovely Agent Scully are going down to investigate?' Frohike said, sounding hopeful. 'Yeah, we leave for Cancun tomorrow.' 'Our tax dollars at work,' Langly snorted. 'I'd love to see Agent Scully with a healthy tropical tan,' Frohike said. 'Down, Frohike,' Mulder said.

Sam O’Neill drew a deft little caricature of the two of us as Mulder and Scully (I still have it, somewhere) and Cassie stuck it to the side of her computer, next to a bumper sticker that said BAD COP! NO DOUGHNUT!

As sentimentality towards animals can be overindulged, so, too, can grim realism, seeing only the things we want in animals and not the animals themselves.

Love. Four letters can't cover what I feel for Daria Followhill. They seem too trivial, too small, too overused.

He pulls me into a hug. A rarity I know not to take for granted when it comes to Vaughn. I bury my face in his chest and let myself crumple, feeling my bones shaking inside my body.

[Mulder] slowed as he approached the front walk, slipping his left hand into his pocket to wrap around his gun. Front or back? Wait for Scully, or do the stupid thing and go in on his own? He had no realistic alternative.

Love. I don’t use the L word lightly. I don’t go around telling people I love pizza or chocolate or Riverdale. I like those things. Love, I save for the important stuff. But I am hopelessly, tragically in love with Penn Scully.

Mulder, I want you to meet your new assistant. Special Agent Dana Scully, Fox Mulder.' 'An assistant? Nice to know I'm suddenly so highly regarded.' Mulder turned to Scully. 'Who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?

What would you have asked of me if I took the sea glass?' 'To save me all your firsts,

I've loved you in secret, and I've loved you openly in front of both our worlds, and if you think I'll stop loving you if you put an ocean between us, you're dead wrong.

I have to admit, this place gives me the creeps.' [said Scully]. 'The creeps?' said Mulder with a smile. 'Just because a bunch of big, strong men cleared out so fast they didn't finish their food? And then vanished into thin air? Don't be silly. I'm sure there's a nice scientific explanation. Oh, sorry Scully. You're the one who's supposed to be telling me that, right?

Where we find wrongs done to animals, it is no excuse to say that more important wrongs are done to human beings, and let us concentrate on those. A wrong is a wrong, and often the little ones, when they are shrugged off as nothing, spread and do the gravest harm to ourselves and others.

Mulder stumbled, and Scully grabbed his arm to steady him. He smiled at her wanly. 'Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?' 'Since when did you ever think I was helpless, Mulder?' Never, he thought; never.

In any case I just cannot imagine attaching so much importance to any food or treat that I would grow irate or bitter at the mention of the suffering of animals. A pig to me will always seem more important than a pork rind. There is the risk here of confusing realism with cynicism, moral stoicism with moral sloth, of letting oneself become jaded and lazy and self-satisfied--what used to be called an 'appetitive' person.

I feel a brush over my arm where Penn stood just a second ago. It's Knight. And next to Knight stands Vaughn. 'Cole?' Gus twists his lips, glowering. 'What the fuck?' Knight clasps a hand on my shoulder, hitching a shoulder up while lighting a joint. 'The fuck is, you don't fuck with my family and integrity and assume you get out of it in one piece. Or, you know, at all.

When a man’s love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice.

My earliest recollection is of coming upon some rabbit tracks in the backyard snow. I must have been three or so, but I had never seen a rabbit and can still recall the feeling of being completely captivated by the tracks: Someone had been here. And he left these prints. And he was alive. And he lived somewhere nearby, maybe even watching me at this very moment. Four decades later, I do not need to be reminded that rabbits are often a nuisance to farmers and gardeners. My point is that when you look at a rabbit and can see only a pest, or vermin, or a meal, or a commodity, or a laboratory subject, you aren't seeing the rabbit anymore. You are seeing only yourself and the schemes and appetites we bring to the world--seeing, come to think of it, like an animal instead of as a moral being with moral vision.

I know many people far more upright and conscientous than I am who disagree, who think nothing of it. I know that vegetarianism runs against mankind's most casual assumptions about the world and our place within it. And I know that factory farming is an economic inevitability, not likely to end anytime soon. But I don't answer to inevitabilities, and neither do you. I don't answer to the economy. I don't answer to tradition and I don't answer to Everyone. For me, it comes down to a question of whether I am a man or just a consumer. Whether to reason or just to rationalize. Whether to heed my conscience or my every craving, to assert my free will or just my will. Whether to side with the powerful and comfortable or with the weak, afflicted, and forgotten.

I don't like to be alone, but I do cherish the moments that I'm alone with a good book.

If animals are just commodities, then we are just consumers, with no greater good than material pleasure and no higher law than appetite.

remember that even though the dream may be an illusion, the dreaming is always real.

The truth is out there, but so are lies.

I drank in the scene around me. Some people were directing traffic, some were throwing buckets full of water on the flames (the whole bucket too, not just the contents), some were snapping photos and one guy, I recognized as a regular of the Black Opal, Scully, was clutching a stool and crying. It was like the bleacher seats at a Cubs game when the beer gets cut off...

I know a 'crime against nature' when I see one. It is usually a sign of crimes against nature that we cannot bear to see them at all, that we recoil and hide our eyes, and no one has ever cringed at the sight of a soybean factory. I also know phony arguments when I hear them--unbridled appetite passing itself off as altruism, and human arrogance in the guise of solemn 'duty.' We must, as C.S. Lewis advises, 'reject with detestation that covert propoganda for cruelty which tries to drive mercy out of the world by calling it names such as 'Humanitarianism' and 'Sentimentality.

Scully nodded. Of course. It made sense. Complete sense. No question about it. Mulder was perfectly sane in telling her all this. And she was perfectly sane in listening to it and nodding and urging him to tell her more. It was the rest of the world that was- She doubled over as a wave of laughter hit her. Mulder looked at her and started laughing too. They stood there in the cemetery in the darkness and the drizzle, laughing their heads off. 'You know we're crazy,' Scully finally said. 'Of course we are,' Mulder gasped out.

I'm turning my back on Vaughn and Knight without saying goodbye because I know they won't let me go. They'll promise to protect me and fight my battles at school, and a part of me still wants that to happen.

Mulder looked down at his partner. 'Please get better,' he said. 'I'm going to need all the help I can get.' He might have been crazy, but he thought he saw her head give a tiny nod. He'd have to wait and see.

Reforms will come as all great reforms have always come in ridding us of evils against both man and animal--not as we change our moral principles but as we discern and accept the implications of principles already held.

Knight and Vaughn are the closest to each other, practically brothers, which is weird because they are also like fire and ice. Vaughn is a crazy artist with psychotic tendencies, and Knight is the definition of a popular jock. One is Edward Scissorhands; the other is Zac Efron's prettier long-lost brother.

Asshole, I will pepperspray your ass, BACK OFF." The first think I think is Cora!, even though it doesn't sound like Cora. Then my brain makes the leap to ... Amber!, who is always hovering at the top of my list of fierce ladies. This is succeeded, rather dazedly by Xena?, Buffy?, River Song?, Agent Scully?, Proffessor McGonagall?, President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol?, Mad Wife In The Attic From Jane Austen Not Eyre No Wait Damn It Eyre Not Austen?

The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a dinky little entrance, were the Roman ruins like honeycomb. The trains went under the river. There were tunnels people had forgotten about. It was a wonder Paris stood up at all. The bit you saw was only half of it. Her skin burned, thinking of it. The Hunchback knew. Up here in the tower of Notre Dame he saw how it was. Now and then, with the bells rattling his bones, he saw it like God saw it -- inside, outside, above and under -- just for a moment. The rest of the time he went back to hurting and waiting like Scully out there crying in the wind.

Such terrifying powers we possess, but what a sorry lot of gods some men are. And the worst of it is not the cruelty but the arrogance, the sheer hubris of those who bring only violence and fear into the animal world, as if it needed any more of either. Their lives entail enough frights and tribulations without the modern fire-makers, now armed with perfected, inescapable weapons, traipsing along for more fun and thrills at their expense even as so many of them die away. It is our fellow creatures' lot in the universe, the place assigned them in creation, to be completely at our mercy, the fiercest wolf or tiger defenseless against the most cowardly man. And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them, as if their little share of the earth's happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man's attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational, or wicked.

Mulder' she said gently. 'They don't want you involved. They don't want to hear your theories. That's why Section Chief Blevins has you hidden away down here in the basement.' Mulder didn't seem at all hurt by this. 'You're down here too,' he pointed out cheerfully. Scully slumped in her chair... Couldn't he ever take no for an answer?

Besides, you have to remember that the thinner air out here slows down the intellectual process, the result of less oxygen flowing to the brain.' He grinned and looked at her sideways. 'Is that a doctor thing?' 'No that's a Scully thing... The doctor thing is, get some sleep... or you'll be useless in the morning.' He nodded as he waved a weary good night over his shoulder, sidestepping a garden wall just before he tripped over it. Another wave- I'm okay, I know what I'm doing- before he disappeared into the passageway.

The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.

Choose your sister.' 'Sir?' 'Choose her. Don't choose Daria. You'll end up giving her less than she deserves. And my daughter deserves everything. Not half of it. Not a quarter. And definitely not messy. Let her go. Unless, of course...' He pauses, cocking his head to examine my expression. I don't breathe. 'Unless?' 'You love Daria. Then I do not allow you, under any fucking circumstances, to break both your hearts because Sylvia still holds a grudge.

Prichard's got too much to lose. He can't touch us.' 'Can anyone?' Penn wonders aloud, just as Trent's door opens from the other side. Dean whistles for him to get outside, swinging my baseball bat and parking it over his shoulder. 'Maybe God,' I answer curtly. 'Even that's debatable.' Dean snickers.

Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind’s capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don’t; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us. Animals are so easily overlooked, their interests so easily brushed aside.

I'm sure they just felt more comfortable talking to me.' 'Why would I make them so uncomfortable?' Mulder asked. Scully faced him, hesitating... 'It's probably because of your... reputation.' 'Reputation?' he echoed, sounding puzzled. 'I have a reputation?' Mulder was deliberately giving her a hard time... 'They feel your methods, your theories are...' 'Spooky?' Mulder guessed. 'What about you? You think I'm... spooky?

Though reason must guide us in laying down standards and laws regarding animals, and in examining the arguments of those who reject such standards, it is usually best in any moral inquiry to start with the original motivation, which in the case of animals we may without embarrassment call love. Human beings love animals as only the higher love the lower, the knowing love the innocent, and the strong love the vulnerable. When we wince at the suffering of animals, that feeling speaks well of us even when we ignore it, and those who dismiss love for our fellow creatures as mere sentimentality overlook a good and important part of our humanity.

With his bare hands Mulder dug at the loose earth. After a minute, he said, 'I've go it. I just have to pull it out and-' He got no further. He and Scully were blinded by a high power flashlight. When their vision cleared, they saw the sheriff looming over them, brandishing an ugly-looking .45. 'May I ask what you're doing?' he growled. Mulder held up what he had found in the earth: a piece of raw potato. 'Exhuming your potato,' was all he could say.

Dr. Blockhead's mocking face was solemn for once. 'Modern science is wiping out deviant strains of the human form,' he said. 'In the twenty-first century, genetic engineering will do more than merely eliminate Siamese twins and alligator-skinned people. It will make it hard to find a person with even a slight overbite or a large nose. I can see that future and it makes me shudder. The future looks like- him' Dr. Blockhead pointed at Mulder. 'Imagine going through your whole life looking like that,' said Dr. Blockhead. Mulder shrugged. 'It's a tough job- but someone has to do it.

I didn't mean to save him all my firsts. But it happened, and a part of me is glad that it did. Because he was the first boy to give me a gift. The first boy to kiss me. To want to become my friend not because I was popular, but because I was me. He was the first boy who noticed the injured animal behind the camouflage of hostility and tried to give it water and shelter.

An author describing the methods of intensive farming, or the excesses of sport hunting, or even the harsher uses of animals in science writes with confidence that most readers will share his sense of concern and indignation. Sounding the call to action--convincing people that change is not only necessary, but actually possible--is more problematic. In protecting animals from cruelty, it is always just one step from the mainstream to the fringe. To condemn the wrong is obvious, to suggest its abolition radical.

So, Mulder,' Colton spoke in a mocking tone. 'What do you think? Look like the work of Little Green Men?' 'Gray,' Mulder said seriously. 'What?' Colton asked. 'Gray,' Mulder explained. You said green men. A Reticulan's skin tone is gray. They're known for their extraction of human livers due to a lack of iron in the Reticulian Galaxy.' Colton looked confused- as though he couldn't tell whether Mulder was joking. 'You can't be serious,' he said. 'Do you know how much liver and onions go for on Reticulum?' Mulder asked Colton.

Scully, you're a doctor, for God's sake. You gonna tell me you actually go along with this s---?' [said the Sheriff]. Mulder held his breath. 'Sheriff,' [Scully] answered in her most official, neutral voice. 'I have never known Mulder to be so far off-base that I would dismiss everything he says out of hand.'... Thank you Scully, Mulder thought with a brief smile. I'd rather have a resounding 'Absolutely and how dare you,' but that'll do in a pinch. On the other hand, the day that 'Absolutely and how dare you' actually came, it would probably kill him with amazement.

I think he overlook a phase: that empathy stage in our lives when we may begin to see even the commonest animals on their own terms, fellow creatures with their own needs to meet and hardships to bear, joined with us in the mystery of life and death--and frankly, for all of our more exalted endowments, not all that much less enlightened than the sagest of naked apes about the meaning of it all. That kinship is to me reason enough to go about my own way in the world showing each one as much courtesy as I can, refraining from things that bring animals needless harm. They all seem to have enough dangers coming at them as it is. Whenever human beings with our loftier gifts and grander calling in the world can stop to think on their well-being, if only by withdrawing to let them be, it need not be a recognition of 'rights.' It is just a gracious thing, an act of clemency only more to our credit because the animals themselves cannot ask for it, or rebuke us when we transgress against them, or even repay our kindness.

Philosophical theories can in this way become a destructive venture, confusing matters with false choices and sterile power schemes the cruel are only too happy to accept. In hostile hands, they become a pretext for doing nothing, for brushing off real and urgent moral duties in the care of animals.

lives when we may begin to see even the commonest animals on their own terms, fellow creatures with their own needs to meet and hardships to bear, joined with us in the mystery of life and death—and frankly, for all of our more exalted endowments, not all that much less enlightened than the sagest of naked apes about the meaning of it all.

A smile spread over Dr. Blockhead's face. 'But where are my manners?' he said. 'What a bad host I am. Let me offer you a little refreshment.' He picked up a jar, opened it, and held it out to Scully. 'Is that what I think it is?' she asked. 'The finest assortment of living crickets money can buy,' said Dr. Blockhead. 'And all quite recently captured. If you don't believe me, read the expiration date on the label.' 'I believe you,' said Scully, still peering at the contents. She reached in and picked out her cricket. Then she put it in her mouth and crunched down. She smiled at Dr. Blockhead. 'Thank you so much for the treat,' she said. Then she gave him a dazzling smile and walked away. 'That Scully,' said Mulder, shaking his head. 'She's just full of surprises.

His body was sweet and clean smelling. As she finished [massaging his dislocated shoulder], Fay bent and gently kissed him on the neck, that part where the skin is so soft abd sensitive, midway between the angle of the jaw and the hair line at the back of the neck. He opened his eyes, startled, then smiled as he murmured, "Oh! It's you. That's all right." He folded his arms about her, bringing her head close to his, then like a contented child sank into a deep sleep. His clean body odor gave her keenest delight. She hesitated to attempt to alter their relationship, and possibly lose him entirely. He had accepted her as a pal, that she would be.

A few minutes later, a very slim, very directed black-haired woman with olive skin and a classic profile swept into the room. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. She was the executive assistant version of the beautiful librarian cliché. Severe suit, abrupt manner, glasses perched on her nose and secured on a no-nonsense chain around her neck. But you knew when she took those specs off and let down her hair, the results would be dazzling.

The corporate farmer is the absent farmer, the stranger on his own property, too important to worry about little details like whether a pig has room to turn or straw to sleep on. He is our modern hireling, too busy with bigger business than the care of his own animals, and we were warned about him long ago: The hired hand—who is no shepherd nor owner of the sheep— catches sight of the wolf coming and runs away, leaving the sheep to be snatched and scattered by the wolf. That is because he works for pay; he has no concern for the sheep.