Shadow Milk Quotes

She's an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that's turned." "And so skinny!" the cook replied. "Never finishes her supper." Crouched beside the girl, the boy turned to her and whispered, "Why don't you eat?" "Because everything she cooks tastes like mud." "Tastes fine to me." "You'll eat anything." They bent their ears back to the crack in the cupboard doors. A moment later the boy whispered, "I don't think you're ugly." "Shhhh!" the girl hissed. But hidden by the deep shadows of the cupboard, she smiled.

Are you scared of going in to see the raghnaid [the council]?” asked a gray female pup. “Are you cag mag [crazy]? If a bear was his Milk Giver, you think he’s scared of the raghnaid?

Shamus ordered half a cup of house brew. Then he proceeded to fill the cup up the rest of the way with milk and sugar. Lots of sugar. “Sure you got enough milk in your sugar?” I asked as we strolled out of the shop and headed south. He flipped me off. “You drink your coffee your way, and I’ll drink my coffee the right way.

Yet here, this night, you might repose with me, On green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I, Soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow. And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar, And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!

Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.

The Fear of Burial In the empty field, in the morning, the body waits to be claimed. The spirit sits beside it, on a small rock-- nothing comes to give it form again. Think of the body's loneliness. At night pacing the sheared field, its shadow buckled tightly around. Such a long journey. And already the remote, trembling lights of the village not pausing for it as they scan the rows. How far away they seem, the wooden doors, the bread and milk laid like weights on the table.

Man sets his hand to games of power and influence, he quests for far horizons and wealth beyond imagining. He thinks to own what cannot be possessed. He hews the ancient trees to broaden his grazing lands; he mines the deep caves and topples the standing stones. He embraces a new faith with fervor and, perhaps, with sincerity. But he grows ever further from the old things. He can no longer hear the heartbeat of the earth, his mother. He cannot smell the change in the air; he cannot see what lies beyond the veil of shadows. Even his new god is formed in his own image, for do they not call him the son of man? By his own choice he is cut adrift from the ancient cycles of sun and moon, the ordered passing of the seasons. And without him, the Fair Folk dwindle and are nothing. They retreat and hide themselves, and are reduced to the clurichaun with his little ale jug; the brownie who steals the cow's milk at Samhain; the half-heard wailing of the banshee. They become no more than a memory in the mind of a frail old man; a tale told by a crazy old woman.

Let me sing the beauty of my Maggie. Legs:--the knees attached to the thighs, knees shiny, thighs like milk. Arms:--the levers of my content, the serpents of my joy. Back:--the sight of that in a strange street of dreams in the middle of Heaven would make me fall sitting from glad recognition. Ribs?--she had some melted and round like a well formed apple, from her thigh bones to waist I saw the earth roll. In her neck I hid myself like a lost snow goose of Australia, seeking the perfume of her breast. . . . She didn't let me, she was a good girl. The poor big alley cat, though almost a year younger, had black ideas about her legs that he hid from himself, also in his prayers didn't mention . . . the dog. Across the big world darkness I've come, in boat, in bus, in airplane, in train standing my shadow immense traversing the fields and the redness of engine boilers behind me making me omnipotent upon the earth of the night, like God--but I have never made love with a little finger that has won me since. I gnawed her face with my eyes; she loved that; and that was bastardly I didn't know she loved me--I didn't understand.

The sun had risen for me -for me alone- and turned the sky into the painted milk of a soggy bowl of leftover off-brand Lucky Charms. The soft roses and lavenders went on to burn blood orange on the underbellies of clouds. I told my shadow I wanted to keep the sun. My shadow whispered back the instructions for making a memory. I watched the light of day ascend until it hurt my eyes, then I closed them, and taught myself to remember.

The sun, nurturing mother of the earth, poured a scalding milk upon the day, boiling some of the blue from the sky and leaving the heavens faded. Even the oak shadows now throbbed with heat, and as I walked away from my mother, I was so hot with shame that I would not have been surprised if the grass had burst into fire under my feet.

When the bad time begins, you may feel alone, because your mind never goes with you. Even your shadow leaves you, then what to say about friends? In this world it is very difficult to get true friend. Cause most of the time people come to you as friend with some great need inside them. They remain with you until their needs. When neediness is over they leave you, whatever your condition is or where ever you stuck in. They leave you when you need them. They leave you when you are in danger. They only remain with you for the happy hours. When the happy hour is over they fly away like a fly when milk is not in the bowl. These words everybody knows, “Friend in need, friends indeed.”.

Walk openly, Marian used to say. Love even the threat and the pain, feel yourself fully alive, cast a bold shadow, accept, accept. What we call evil is only a groping towards good, part of the trial and error by which we move toward the perfected consciousness… God is kind? Life is good? Nature never did betray the heart that loved her? Why the reward she received for living intensely and generously and trying to die with dignity? Why the horror at the bridge her last clear sight of earth?...I do not accept, I am not reconciled. But one thing she did. She taught me the stupidity of the attempt to withdraw and be free of trouble and harm... She said, “You wondered what was in whale’s milk. Now you know. Think of the force down there, just telling things to get born, just to be!” I had had no answer for her then. Now I might have one. Yes, think of it, I might say. And think how random and indiscriminate it is, think how helplessly we must submit, think how impossible it is to control or direct it. Think how often beauty and delicacy and grace are choked out by weeds. Think how endless and dubious is the progress from weed to flower. Even alive, she never convinced me with her advocacy of biological perfectionism. She never persuaded me to ignore, or look upon as merely hard pleasures, the evil that I felt in every blight and smut and pest in my garden- that I felt, for that matter, squatting like a toad on my own heart. Think of the force of life, yes, but think of the component of darkness in it. One of the things that’s in whale’s milk is the promise of pain and death. And so? Admitting what is so obvious, what then? Would I wipe Marion Catlin out of my unperfected consciousness if I could? Would I forgo the pleasure of her company to escape the bleakness of her loss? Would I go back to my own formula, which was twilight sleep, to evade the pain she brought with her? Not for a moment. And so even in the gnashing of my teeth, I acknowledge my conversion. It turns out to be for me as I once told her it would be for her daughter. I shall be richer all my life for this sorrow.

A breeze, vanilla-scented, nutmeg milk, dark roast of cocoa beans over a slow fire. It isn't magic. Really it isn't. It's just a trick, a game I play. There's no such thing as real magic- and yet it works. Sometimes, it works. Can you hear me? I said. Not in my voice, but a shadow-voice, very light, like dappled leaves. She felt it then. I know she did. Turning, she stiffened; I made the door shine a little, ever so slightly, the color of the sky. Played with it, pretty, like a mirror in the sun, shining it on and off her face. Scent of woodsmoke in a cup; a dash of cream, sprinkle of sugar. Bitter orange, your favorite, 70 percent darkest chocolate over thick-cut oranges from Seville. Try me. Taste me. Test me.

First, I see her catch the scent. It's a combination of many things; the Christmas tree in the corner; the musty aroma of old house; orange and clove; ground coffee; hot milk; patchouli; cinnamon- and chocolate, of course; intoxicating, rich as Croesus, dark as death. She looks around, sees wall hangings, pictures, bells, ornaments, a dollhouse in the window, rugs on the floor- all in chrome yellow and fuchsia-pink and scarlet and gold and green and white. It's like an opium den in here, she almost says, then wonders at herself for being so fanciful. In fact she has never seen an opium den- unless it was in the pages of the Arabian Nights- but there's something about the place, she thinks. Something almost- magical.

At his leisure, the lieutenant allowed the unforgettable spectacle to engrave itself upon his mind. With one hand he fondled the hair, with the other he softly stroked the magnificent face, implanting kisses here and there where his eyes lingered. The quiet coldness of the high, tapering forehead, the closed eyes with their long lashes beneath faintly etched brows, the set of the finely shaped nose, the gleam of teeth glimpsed between full, regular lips, the soft cheeks and the small, wise chin… Wherever the lieutenant's eyes moved his lips faithfully followed. The high, swelling breasts, surmounted by nipples like the buds of a wild cherry, hardened as the lieutenant's lips closed about them. The arms flowed smoothly downward from each side of the breast, tapering toward the wrists, yet losing nothing of their roundness or symmetry…The natural hollow curving between the bosom and the stomach carried in its lines a suggestion not only of softness but of resilient strength, and while it gave forewarning to the rich curves spreading outward from here to the hips it had, in itself, an appearance only of restraint and proper discipline. The whiteness and richness of the stomach and hips was like milk brimming in a great bowl, and the sharply shadowed dip of the navel could have been the fresh impress of a raindrop, fallen there that very moment. Where the shadows gathered more thickly, hair clustered, gentle and sensitive, and as the agitation mounted in the now no longer passive body there hung over this region a scent like the smoldering of fragrant blossoms, growing steadily more pervasive… Passionately they held their faces close, rubbing cheek against cheek…Their breasts, moist with sweat, were tightly joined, and every inch of the young and beautiful bodies had become so much one with the other that it seemed impossible there should ever again be a separation…From the heights they plunged into the abyss, and from the abyss they took wing and soared once more to dizzying heights…As one cycle ended, almost immediately a new wave of passion would be generated, and together -with no trace of fatigue- they would climb again in a single breathless movement to the very summit.

and a heart that throbs most queerly. I’m queer for other queers, queer for their shapes and colors and sizes, queer for their tastes. I’m queer for the ruthless sea. I’m queer for all the little queer creatures in the tide pools. I’m queer for the light when it breaks the horizon and queer for it when it sinks behind the trees. I’m plain queer for these people and queer for this world. I’m downright queer in love with this wreck of a world, queer in love with love itself—love’s always queer, always arriving in our hearts from queer nowheres, queering everything—and there we are; wide awake all night, queer as queer can be; queer orphans, queer widows, queer boys, and queer girls; sorrel girls queer for ivory boys, daffodil boys queer for lilac girls; carmine girls queer for sable girls, cinnamon boys so very queer for boys of bluest milk. Wicked shepherds! Burn me at the stake and hang me from a tree. Clap me in the stocks; send me down the mine; set me in the burning fields. But I am queer. And I say, Here is water, bread, a dull penny. Here’re my old shirt, my plane and hammer, a roof I’ll help you raise above your head. Here is my queer old body, in a barn, behind a hedge, beneath a shadow, on a bare pallet—

As I bit into the sweet orange flesh of the apricot, I found myself thinking about some of the women, the mothers who had waited with me in the school playground while we collected our children. Now that we were mothers we were all shadows of our former selves, chased by the women we used to be before we had children. We didn’t really know what to do with her, this fierce, independent young woman who followed us about, shouting and pointing the finger while we wheeled our buggies in the English rain. We tried to answer her back but we did not have the language to explain that we were not women who had merely ‘acquired’ some children – we had metamorphosed (new heavy bodies, milk in our breasts, hormonally programmed to run to our babies when they cried) into someone we did not entirely understand." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy)

She would get no darker, although she seemed to the longer she lived in Mallard. A black dot in the school pictures, a dark speck on the pews at Sunday Mass, a shadow lingering on the riverbank while the other children swam. So black that you could see nothing but her. A fly in milk, contaminating everything.

And there were hundreds of singular events experienced by individuals: creatures moving in the shadows, voices and screams from the sewer grates, milk souring, cats scratching owners, dogs howling, and a thousand people woke up to find that they no longer cared for the taste of chocolate. It was a fucked-up day.

Meridian First daylight on the bittersweet-hung sleeping porch at high summer; dew all over the lawn, sowing diamond- point-highlighted shadows; the hired man's shadow revolving along the walk, a flash of milkpails passing; no threat in sight, no hint anywhere in the universe, of that apathy at the meridian, the noon of absolute boredom; flies crooning black lullabies in the kitchen, milk-soured crocks, cream separator still unwashed; what is there to life but chores and more chores, dishwater, fatigue, unwanted children; nothing to stir the longueur of afternoon except possibly thunderheads; climbing, livid, turreted alabaster lit up from within by splendor and terror -- forded lightening's split-second disaster.

Aware she’d likely never tasted such a thing before, she took a cautious sip. Nothing came up. “The straw’s defective.” Dev shot her a quick grin. It altered his face, turning him strikingly beautiful. But that wasn’t the odd part. The odd part was that seeing him smile made her heart change its rhythm. She lifted her hand a fraction, compelled to trace the curve of his lips, the crease in his cheek. Would he let her, she thought, this man who moved with the liquid grace of a soldier . . . or a beast of prey? “Did I say milk shake?” he said, withheld laughter in his voice. “I meant ice cream smoothie—with enough fresh fruit blended into it to turn it solid.” Glancing at her when she didn’t move, he raised an eyebrow. She felt a wave of heat across her face, and the sensation was so strange, it broke through her fascination. Looking down, she took off the lid after removing the straw and stared at the swirls of pink and white that dominated the delicious-smelling concoction. Intrigued, she poked at it with the tip of her straw. “I can see pieces of strawberry, and what’s that?” She looked more closely at the pink-coated black seeds. “Passion fruit?” “Try it and see.” Handing her his water bottle, he started the car and got them on their way. “How would I know?” She put his water in the holder next to the unopened bottle. “And I need a spoon for this.” Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a plastic-wrapped piece of cutlery. “Here.” “You did that on purpose,” she accused. “Did you want to see how hard I’d try to suck the mixture up?” Another smile, this one a bare shadow. “Would I do that?” It startled her to realize he was teasing her. Devraj Santos, she thought, wasn’t supposed to have a sense of humor. That was something she just knew. And, it was wrong. That meant the shadow-man didn’t know everything, that he wasn’t omnipotent. A cascade of bubbles sparkled through her veins, bright and effervescent. “I think you’re capable of almost anything.” Dipping in the spoon, she brought the decadent mixture to her lips. Oh! The crisp sting of ice, the cream rich and sweet, the fruit a tart burst of sensation. It was impossible not to take a second bite. And a third.

Helios was brilliant in this sun. He had to shield his gaze against it. Had to look at the space beside him through the shadow of his own hand. Helios’s hair spilled across the pillow, violent, sanguine, eyelashes flax-gold. He was blood in milk, he was the skin of a Pink Lady apple, he was honey warmed in a hot spoon over tea. He was looking at Icarus lazy and indulgent. Not surprised in the least to wake up not alone.

In her valley from which these heights hid the rest of the world, she could never see anyone except in these trains that stopped only for a moment. She passed down the line of cars, offering coffee and milk to a few awakened passengers. Purpled with the glow of morning, her face was rosier than the sky. I felt in her presence that desire to live which is reborn in us whenever we become conscious anew of beauty and of happiness.

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts" The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur— There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time, Without that monument of cat, The cat forgotten in the moon; And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light, In which everything is meant for you And nothing need be explained; Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself; And east rushes west and west rushes down, No matter. The grass is full And full of yourself. The trees around are for you, The whole of the wideness of night is for you, A self that touches all edges, You become a self that fills the four corners of night. The red cat hides away in the fur-light And there you are humped high, humped up, You are humped higher and higher, black as stone— You sit with your head like a carving in space And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

Milk in the pan, couverture, sugar, nutmeg, chili. A coconut macaroon on the side. Comforting, like all rituals; gestures handed down from my mother to me, to Anouk, and maybe to her daughter too, someday in a future too distant to imagine. "Great chocolate," he said, eager to please, cupping the little demitasse in hands best suited to building walls. I sipped mine; it tasted of autumn and sweet smoke, of bonfires and temples and mourning and grief. I should have put some vanilla in, I told myself. Vanilla, like ice cream- like childhood.

Cream—the richest, sweetest part of milk—is of course our first flavor, the taste, in a spoon, of life’s first freshness and innocence, long before we ever encounter the taste of cooked food. And what is smoke—or ashes, with which one of the butters has been dusted—if not the very opposite of that freshness? There it is, innocence and experience mingled in a spoonful of ice cream. Bittor, whom no one would describe as a sunny man, has figured out a way to pass a fleeting, chill shadow of mortality over the formerly uncomplicated happiness of ice cream. A

But there's always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chili, brown sugar, cardamom, and 70 percent couverture chocolate- the only chocolate worth buying, she says- and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chili gives it a touch of heat- never too much, just a taste- and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.

Now that we were mothers we were all shadows of our former selves, chased by the women we used to be before we had children. We didn’t really know what to do with her, this fierce, independent young woman who followed us about, shouting and pointing the finger while we wheeled our buggies in the English rain. We tried to answer her back but we did not have the language to explain that we were not women who had merely ‘acquired’ some children – we had metamorphosed (new heavy bodies, milk in our breasts, hormonally programmed to run to our babies when they cried) into someone we did not entirely understand.

A hand clapped on her shoulder. Milk sloshed over the side of the pail, dousing her hand and splattering her skirts. A startled cry whooshed out of her as an arm whipped around her waist. Her back collided with a wall of heat and muscle. “Is this what you wanted?” The rough whisper warmed her ear. “Gray.” She nearly fainted with relief. He held her tight against him with one arm, his other hand skimming over the curve of her hip. “Gray, what on earth are you doing? You made me spill the milk, drat you.” “It won’t go to waste.” Resting his chin on her shoulder, he untangled her fingers from the pail’s handle. Bending her arm at the elbow, he lifted her fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean one by one. His tongue traced each finger and the delicate webs between them, sending gooseflesh rippling down the backs of her legs. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” His fingers interlaced with hers, squeezing them until they hurt. “Your dream lover, lurking in the shadows of the stables, the larder…the storeroom? Lying in wait for his wanton dairymaid?” Sophia froze. Dear God, he’d seen The Book. He nipped at the curve of her neck, and she gasped. “You-“ She swallowed hard. “You had no right to look through that.” “You had no right to put me in it.” She could hear the raw edge of anger in his voice. His fingers still gripping hers, he pressed her own hand to her breast. “But let’s not dwell on rights, sweet. Not when wrongs are so much more interesting.

It wasn't tuna ventresca that drew diners to this community over others, nor was it heritage beef. It was the final bottle of a 1985 Cannonau, salt-crusted from its time on the Sardinian coast. Each diner had barely a swallow. My employer bid us not to swallow, not yet, but hold the wine at the back of the throat till it stung and warmed to the temperature of blood and spit, till we wrung from it the terroir of fields cracked by quake and shadowed by smog; only then, swallowing, choking, grateful, did we appreciate the fullness of its flavor. His face was ferocious and sublime in this moment, cracked open; I saw it briefly behind the mask. He was a man who knew the gradations of pleasure because he knew, like me, the calculus of its loss. To me that wine was fig and plum; volcanic soil; wheat fields shading to salt stone; sun; leather, well-baked; and finally, most lingering, strawberry. Psychosomatic, I'm sure, but what flavor isn't? I raised my glass to the memory of my drunk in the British market. I imagined him sat across the table, calmed at last, sane among the sane. He would have tasted in that wine the starch of a laundered sheet, perhaps, or the clean smooth shot of his dignity. My employer decanted these deepest longings, mysterious to each diner until it flooded the palate: a lost child's yeasty scalp, the morning breath of a lover, huckleberries, onion soup, the spice of a redwood forest gone up in smoke. It is easy, all these years later, to dismiss that country's purpose as decadent, gluttonous. Selfish. It was those things. But it was, also, this connoisseurship of loss.

As I listed to Walter, I slowly begin to accept that my knowledge will have limits, that I'll never know exactly what Willi thought, what he saw or heard, what he decided to do or not to do, what he could have done and failed to do, and why whether actively involved or not, by joining the Nazi Party, Willi had inevitably contributed to furthering the cause of a murderous regime. Would it make a difference in my life if I had found proof that Willi had never worn his uniform, that his wife had, in fact, been dispossessed of her milk business by the Nazis, that he hid his Jewish employer in a shed, or that he himself was half or quarter Jewish? Or would it be easier to navigate my shame if I had been able to prove his guilt, if I had learned that he had been a Nazi through and through, without the shadow of a doubt?

Down every aisle a single thought follows me like a shadow: Brand Italy is strong. When it comes to cultural currency, there is no brand more valuable than this one. From lipstick-red sports cars to svelte runway figures to enigmatic opera singers, Italian culture means something to everyone in the world. But nowhere does the name Italy mean more than in and around the kitchen. Peruse a pantry in London, Osaka, or Kalamazoo, and you're likely to find it spilling over with the fruits of this country: dried pasta, San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, jars of pesto, Nutella. Tucked into the northwest corner of Italy, sharing a border with France and Switzerland, Piedmont may be as far from the country's political and geographical center as possible, but it is ground zero for Brand Italy. This is the land of Slow Food. Of white truffles. Barolo. Vermouth. Campari. Breadsticks. Nutella. Fittingly, it's also the home of Eataly, the supermarket juggernaut delivering a taste of the entire country to domestic and international shoppers alike. This is the Eataly mother ship, the first and most symbolically important store for a company with plans for covering the globe in peppery Umbrian oil, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano Vacche Rosse. We start with the essentials: bottle opener, mini wooden cutting board, hard-plastic wineglasses. From there, we move on to more exciting terrain: a wild-boar sausage from Tuscany. A semiaged goat's-milk cheese from Molise. A tray of lacy, pistachio-pocked mortadella. Some soft, spicy spreadable 'nduja from Calabria. A jar of gianduja, the hazelnut-chocolate spread that inspired Nutella- just in case we have any sudden blood sugar crashes on the trail.

Suddenly a shadow fell athwart the wooden stanchions of the door. It was no more than a darkening of the pallid paws of the day which were now embracing the shed, but all the cows instinctively stiffened, and Adam’s eyes, as he stood up to face the new-comer, were again piteously full of twisted fear. “Adam,” uttered the woman who stood in the doorway, “how many pails of milk will there be this morning?” “I dunnamany,” responded Adam, cringingly; “’tes hard to tell. If so be as our Pointless has got over her indigestion, maybe “twill be four. If so be as she hain’t, maybe three.” Judith Starkadder made an impatient movement. Her large hands had a quality which made them seem to sketch vast horizons with their slightest gesture. She looked a woman without boundaries as she stood wrapped in a crimson shawl to protect her bitter, magnificent shoulders from the splintery cold of the early air. She seemed fitted for any stage, however enormous. “Well, get as many buckets as you can,” she said, lifelessly, half-turning away. “Mrs Starkadder questioned me about the milk yesterday. She has been comparing our output with that from other farms in the district, and she says we are five-sixteenths of a bucket below what our rate should be, considering how many cows we have.

And I thought, I am riding through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, as it says in the Psalm; and I attempted to fear no evil, but it was very hard, for there was evil in the wagon with me, like a sort of mist. So I tried to think about something else. And I looked up at the sky, which did not have a cloud in it, and was filled with stars; and it seemed so close I could touch it, and so delicate I could put my hand right through it, like a spiderweb spangled with dewdrops. But then as I looked, a part of it began to wrinkle up, like the skin on scalding milk; but harder and more brittle, and pebbled, like a dark beach, or like black silk crêpe; and then the sky was only a thin surface, like paper, and it was being singed away. And behind it was a cold blackness; and it was not Heaven or even Hell that I was looking at, but only emptiness. This was more frightening than anything I could think of, and I prayed silently to God to forgive my sins; but what if there was no God to forgive me? And then I reflected that perhaps it was the outer darkness, with the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, where God was not. And as soon as I had this thought, the sky closed over again, like water after you have thrown a stone; and was again smooth and unbroken, and filled with stars.

At this point, the sequence of my memories is disrupted. I sank into a chaos of brief, incoherent and bizarre hallucinations, in which the grotesque and the horrible kept close company. Prostrate, as if I were being garrotted by invisible cords, I floundered in anguish and dread, oppressively ridden by the most unbridled nightmares. A whole series of monsters and avatars swarmed in the shadows, coming to life amid draughts of sulphur and phosphorus like an animated fresco painted on the moving wall of sleep. There followed a turbulent race through space. I soared, grasped by the hair by an invisible hand of will: an icy and powerful hand, in which I felt the hardness of precious stones, and which I sensed to be the hand of Ethal. Dizziness was piled upon dizziness in that flight to the abyss, under skies the colour of camphor and salt, skies whose nocturnal brilliance had a terrible limpidity. I was spun around and around, in bewildering confusion, above deserts and rivers. Great expanses of sand stretched into the distance, mottled here and there by monumental shadows. At times we would pass over cities: sleeping cities with obelisks and cupolas shining milk-white in the moonlight, between metallic palm-trees. In the extreme distance, amid bamboos and flowering mangroves, luminous millennial pagodas descended towards the water on stepped terraces.

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops. When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by. As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop. I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs" Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.

Eastern Standard Time Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address only those in my own time zone, this proper slice of longitude that runs from pole to snowy pole down the globe through Montreal to Bogota. Oh, fellow inhabitants of this singular band, sitting up in your many beds this morning— the sun falling through the windows and casting a shadow on the sundial— consider those in other zones who cannot hear these words. They are not slipping into a bathrobe as we are, or following the smell of coffee in a timely fashion. Rather, they are at work already, leaning on copy machines, hammering nails into a house-frame. They are not swallowing a vitamin like us; rather they are smoking a cigarette under a half moon, even jumping around on a dance floor, or just now sliding under the covers, pulling down the little chains on their bed lamps. But we are not like these others, for at this very moment on the face of the earth, we are standing under a hot shower, or we are eating our breakfast, considered by people of all zones to be the most important meal of the day. Later, when the time is right, we might sit down with the boss, wash the car, or linger at a candle-lit table, but now is the hour for pouring the juice and flipping the eggs with one eye on the toaster. So let us slice a banana and uncap the jam, lift our brimming spoons of milk, and leave it to the others to lower a flag or spin absurdly in a barber's chair— those antipodal oddballs, always early or late. Let us praise Sir Stanford Fleming the Canadian genius who first scored with these lines the length of the spinning earth. Let us move together through the rest of this day passing in unison from light to shadow, coasting over the crest of noon into the valley of the evening and then, holding hands, slip into the deeper valley of night.

These are good." Rico popped an extra piece in his mouth. "As good as the ones they sold at your fiera livre?" As soon as she said it, they both froze. This was all on camera. At least she wasn't holding a knife. "No." Rico smiled at the camera. "Better." The skip of joy in her heart brought with it a shadow of fear, but she ignored it and grabbed square black platters and started to plate the bright white pancakes in delicate quarter folds to form a clover. She handed spoons to Rico and he poured doce de leite into them and placed them next to the pancakes. They were done a good two minutes before the rest of contestants, but they would still have to act like they were rushing at the end because it made for better television. "It looks a little plain," Rico said, taking in everyone else's workstations, where everything from empanadas to elephant ears and patajones (Danny, naturally) were being tossed up. "Should I cut up some strawberries? It could use some fruit, and maybe whipped cream?" He was right. It needed something. Plain would definitely get them hammered by the judges. But not strawberries and whipped cream. Not anything so predictable. Ashna raced to the pantry, picked up a mango, and tossed it at Rico. Then without waiting to see if he would catch it, she turned to grab some saffron and ran back to their station. "Can you dice the mango?" Before the question was even out of her mouth, he was slicing. DJ called out the one-minute warning. Ashna pinched out a fat clump of saffron into a metal spoon, mixed in a few drops of milk, and held it over the fire. The saffron dissolved into the milk, turning it orange, and despite the smells from all the workstations, the aroma of saffron permeated the air. DJ started to count down the last ten seconds. Ashna drizzled the saffron milk onto the four spoons of doce de leite just as Rico arranged the mango at the center of each plate.

I went into the kitchen and ate some rotten flesh and drank a cup of curdled milk.

When breakfast was over you could tell by the long, long shadow of the fig tree that it was still very early in the morning. On sunny days Doña Teresa could tell the time almost exactly by its shadow, but on rainy days she just had to guess, because there was no clock in her little cabin. It was lucky that it was so early, because there were so many things to be done. The Twins and their mother were not the only busy people about, however, for there were two hundred other peons beside Pancho who worked on the hacienda, and each one had a little cabin where he lived with his family. There were other vaqueros besides [p 20 ] Pancho. There were ploughmen, and farmers, and water-carriers, and servants for the great white house where Señor Fernandez lived with his wife and pretty daughter Carmen. And there was the gatekeeper, José, 9 whom the Twins loved because he knew the most wonderful stories and was always willing to tell them. There were field-workers, and wood-cutters, and even fishermen. The huts where they all lived were huddled together like a little village, and the village, and the country for miles and miles around, and the big house, and the little chapel beside it, and the schoolhouse, and everything else on that great hacienda, belonged to Señor Fernandez. It almost seemed as if the workers all belonged to Señor Fernandez, too, for they had to do just what he told them to, and there was no other place for them to go and nothing else for them to do if they had wanted ever so much to change. [p 21 ] All the people, big and little, loved the fiesta of San Ramon. They thought the priest’s blessing would cause the hens to lay more eggs, and the cows to give more milk, and that it would keep all the creatures well and strong. Though it was a feast day, most of the men had gone away from their homes early, when Pancho did; but the women and children in all the little cabins were busy as bees, getting themselves and their animals ready to go in procession to the place where the priest was to bless them. As soon as breakfast was eaten, Doña Teresa said to Tonio: “Go now, my Tonio, and make Tonto beautiful! His coat is rough and full of burs, and he will make a very poor figure to show the priest unless you give him a good brushing. Only be careful

There are no certainties but one. Death will come. My philosophy has always been: feckin’ A—all the more reason to ride the hell out of it! Milk life for all you can get. Howl with laughter, scream with fear. Get sloshed on every color of the rainbow.

I watched the shadow climbing the fields and I turned uphill to come to the top gate and the last barn the sun still in the day and my shadow going on out into the upland and I saw they were milking it was that hour and it seemed all my friends were there we greeted each other and we walked back out to the gate talking and saw the last light and our shadows gesturing far out along the ridge until the darkness gathered them and we went on standing here believing there were other words we stood here talking about our lives in the autumn

From the Tamil country, Gandhi moved on to Travancore, where he spent two weeks touring and speaking. Gandhi pressed home the importance of ending untouchability regardless of whether or not it had scriptural sanction. At one town, Nagercoil, he told his audience that not everything written in Sanskrit had a binding effect on social behaviour. ‘That which is opposed to the fundamental maxims of morality,’ he remarked, ‘that which is opposed to trained reason, cannot be claimed as Shastras no matter how ancient it may be.’ At another town, Quilon, he said that ‘untouchability poisons Hinduism as a drop of arsenic poisons milk’. He himself had ‘not a shadow of doubt that in the great turmoil now taking place either untouchability has to die or Hinduism has to disappear’.

She stills all storms- Her eyes kill our enemies, And torment the unbelievers. From the spires of Tuono Where dawnlight strikes And clear water runs, You see her shadow. In the shining summer heat She serves us bread and milk- Cool, fragrant with spices. Her eyes melt our enemies, Torment our oppressors And pierce all mysteries. She is Alia. . . Alia. . . Alia. . .

It was odd, how everyone spoke of it, as though it were one single event. The time when the county had turned upside down and all rules of logic were discarded out of the windows of reason. It had all began when Tony Anderson was taken to the hospital for drunkenly shooting up his house. That one single night, seemed to unleash something rather otherworldly on the community. It was then that the autumn harvests began to mysteriously die and wither. It was then that hushed rumors began about deformed cattle, milk curdled and sour eggs were yielded from the chickens. When people began speaking of shadows lurking in their hallways, and voices outside of their windows at night.

There are encounters that change nothing. Urth turns her aged face to the sun and he beams upon her snows; they scintillate and coruscate until each little point of ice hanging from the swelling sides of the towers seems the Claw of the Conciliator, the most precious of gems. Then everyone except the wisest believes that the snow must melt and give way to a protracted summer beyond summer. Nothing of the sort occurs. The paradise endures for a watch or two, then shadows blue as watered milk lengthen on the snow, which shifts and dances under the spur of an east wind. Night comes, and all is at it was. My finding Triskele was like that. I felt that it could have and should have changed everything, but it was only the episode of a few months, and when it was over and he was gone, it was only another winter passed and the Feast of Holy Katharine come again, and nothing had changed.

Shep-en-Mut The painted wooden face was known to me. She stood in the dusty museum sun, Painted eyes lengthened with kohl. Azure, terra-cotta, white, Emblazoned cartonnage. The Isis wings, spread in care and love. Curving protective Neckbet and Nepthys. Beneath, the corticated skin, Black bitumen. Eyeless, cracked and black, Dessicated viscera, wrapped apart. Leaving child and husband, moving through satin bands of shadow, Singing in the ecstatic sun. Feet hissing through the silken sand She carried the Milk Jar and a Palm frond, Worshipping and serving each day. This lady was the songstress of Amun-Re, Her songs curved upward in the great Temple of Thebes. The stone beauty of the face of the God above her frailty Gave her voice a scope of praise denied to our dessicated senses When death stooped on her, claws and beak ripped. Then feathers lay outstretched in love. Horus wings, Night Heron beak, Having slain, now standing guard in fearful phalanx. Leaving the echo between the roof trees. Her flesh must be pickled, cured with cinnamon and myrrh. The skull, frail as a blown egg, Emptied of its convolute majesty, Stuffed with delicate resinous rags. When the sucking natron has had its meal Her shell will taste the shriving sun and wind once more. Blow gently, shine kindly down, Amun-Re, on thy slave. She shall be wrapped in fine linen Layer on layer, and laced like a shoe. The last we shall see in linen and plaster and paint. May her journey be safe through the dark tunnels May her soul sing in light before her God, In soft peace. The holding wings enfold my friend. Priestess of Thebes. Singer of Amun-Re Bearer of the little Milk Jar.

No one would choose to crawl under fences, beaten until your shadow leaves, raped, forced off the boat because you are darker, drowned, sold, starved, shot at the border like a sick animal, pitied. No one would choose to make a refugee camp home for a year or two or ten, stripped and searched, finding prison everywhere. And if you were to survive, greeted on the other side--Go home Blacks, dirty refugees, sucking our country dry of milk, dark with their hands out, smell strange, savage, look what they've done to their own countries, what will they do to ours?

Proud Americans outlaw country gritty defiant [Verse] Stompin' boots on dusty trails, where the thunder rolls, Stars and stripes hang high, in the heartland of our souls, Old-time whiskey in our veins, and the spirit of the free, Riding through the winds of change, it's where we wanna be. [Chorus] We're proud Americans, our hearts beat as one, The time has come, to heal and embrace, So let's stand united, let our voices be heard, Proud Americans, leading the way. [Verse 2] Front porches and pickup trucks, where stories still unfold, From sea to shining sea, we've got so much untold, Mending fences, crossing lines, together we are strong, In the land of milk and honey, where we all belong. [Chorus] We're proud Americans, our hearts beat as one, The time has come, to heal and embrace, So let's stand united, let our voices be heard, Proud Americans, leading the way. [Bridge] Through the trials and pain, we’ve always pulled through, In every small town and city, under skies of blue, With grit and love, in each verse we say, We're fighting for a brighter day. [Verse 3] Guitars strum like battle cries, in the twilight’s golden hue, From the shadows to the spotlight, we sing a country tune, Bonfires light the night, with hope and memories, Echoes of freedom, carried by the breeze.

Leelan,” Wrath barked as he exploded up from his chair. There were all kinds of deep-voiced greetings, but his brothers got out of the way so that she had a clear shot into his arms. And as he lifted her up, he was careful to put no pressure on her belly. “How are you?” he whispered in her ear, knowing that one of these days, she was going to answer that she was having contractions. “Fine and dandy. Oh, my God, I got the best stuff! I had to go blue—I mean, whatever, we’re having a boy. The crib and dressing table are perfect—right, iAm?” The Shadow answered, “Perfect.” No doubt the poor bastard had no interest in the shit at all, but that didn’t matter. He was another one who had stuck by Beth and been her protector in the human world—and Wrath knew the why, of course. It was iAm’s way of paying the household back for letting him and his it’s-complicated brother stay at the mansion after their pad at the Commodore had been compromised. Plus, it was pretty obvi that he liked Beth in a nonromantic kind of way. “Right? I know, right?” Beth hugged Wrath’s neck so hard he couldn’t swallow. “I’m so excited! I want to meet him now!” “Is this nesting?” Wrath asked in the direction of where he’d heard Z’s voice last. “Yeah. And wait for it. You still have Diaper Genies and bottles to get through.” “We’re going Born Free,” Beth informed him, like he knew what that meant. “In case my milk doesn’t come in.” Wrath just sat down in the chair and arranged her on his lap, content to ease back and let her enjoy making her report. And the brothers and the fighters? They rallied right around, asking questions like big brothers would. Any one of them would have laid down his life for her or that young in her womb. It was enough to make a male have to blink a little faster.

The second he caught her scent, he stopped. “Leelan! Are you sure you should be up?” Turned out the smell of the food was one hell of a distraction: the spike of hunger she got in response enough to halt her in her tracks. “Ah . . . yeah, I feel okay. I’m hungry, actually.” As well as scared to death. While the staff continued on into the billiards room, filing in past some sheets of heavy plastic, Wrath came over to the base of the stairs. “Let’s get you into the kitchen.” Heading all the way down to join him, she let him take her arm, and leaned into his strength, taking a deep, easing breath. She’d probably just imagined everything up there. Really. Probably. Crap. “You know, I slept well,” she murmured as if to reassure herself. Which didn’t work. “Yeah?” “Mm-hm.” Together, they walked past the long dining table, and went through the flap door in the far corner. On the other side, iAm was once again at the stove, stirring a great pot. The Shadow turned—and immediately frowned as he looked at her. “What?” She put her hands to her stomach. “What are you—” “Nothing,” he said, banging his wooden spoon on the steel vat. “You two like chicken soup?” “Oh, yes, that sounds perfect.” Beth hopped up onto a stool. “And some bread maybe—” Fritz materialized at her elbow with a baguette and a plate with butter. “For you, madam.” She had to laugh. “How did you know?” As Wrath sat on the stool next to her, George parked it between them. “I had him on standby.” A steaming bowl of soup was slid in front of her by the Shadow. “Enjoy.” “Him, too?” she asked of iAm. “Yeah, the Shadow mighta been on it as well.” Picking up the spoon Fritz offered her, she dug in, aware the three males were staring at her—Wrath with such intensity, it was almost as if he’d gotten his sight back— “Mmmmm,” she said—and meant it. The soup was perfect, simple, not too heavy, and warm, warm, warm. Maybe it was just that she’d been through the needing and not eaten for how long? “So what’s going on in the billiards room,” she asked, to try to distract the males. “They’re cleaning up after me.” She winced. “Ah.” Wrath patted around for the baguette and broke off the hard end, putting it aside. The piece he then tore for her was soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside—and the butter he put on it was the unsalted, sweet kind. The combo was great with the soup. “Would you like something to drink?” Fritz asked. “Wine?” iAm said—before catching himself. “No, not wine. Milk. You need the calcium.” “Good idea, Shadow,” Wrath chimed in as he nodded at Fritz. “Make it whole—” “No, no, that will make me gag.” Annnnd didn’t that stop all of them in their tracks. “Which was true before all the, well, you know. But the skim does sound good.” And so it went, the three of them waiting on her: More soup? iAm hit her bowl again right away. More bread with butter? Husband was on it. More milk? The butler raced for the fridge.

Around this time my friend Medora, now a chemist with the Bombay Milk Scheme’s laboratory at Anand, asked me to accompany him and his brother on a rather unusual trip. His brother wanted to consult a chhaya jyotishi in Cambay. The chhaya jyotishi measured your shadow in the noonday sun, consulted his collection of ancient parchments and looked for the one that matched with the measurement of your shadow and predicted the future. Medora’s brother wanted his shadow ‘read’ because he was keen on getting married and was seeking ‘spiritual’ advice about whether the young lady he had in mind was the right choice. I found this entire exercise quite ridiculous. I had never had faith nor interest in the ‘occult sciences’. I went along with the Medoras because anything was a good change from the monotony of life at Anand. After Medora’s brother got his shadow ‘read’, they persuaded me to do the same. So as not to appear a spoilsport and also for some fun I stood in the sun while the jyotishi measured my shadow. Shuffling through the bunch of parchment-like leaves, and finding what he was looking for, he read out: ‘You have no faith.’ I told him he was absolutely right; I was an atheist. Ignoring me, he continued to read out some details about my family and childhood which turned out to be absolutely accurate. He then asked me if he should read me my future. By this time I was rather intrigued so I agreed. Among the many things the jyotishi told me, a particular detail remained firmly stuck in my mind: ‘You are very unhappy in your job right now but within a month you will change it and then you should just sit back and watch,’ he read out. ‘Your career is set for a phenomenal rise – the kind you can never imagine.’ I had smiled sceptically to myself then, but in hindsight what he predicted could not have been truer. Within

I was going to do it. I was really going to do something selfless for once in my life since Cat and Brock happened. The last time I did something altruistic, it became my ruin. I was about to do it again, knowing it would hurt ten fucking thousand times more than it hurt when I broke off my engagement with Cat. Because, looking back, the pain of Catalina’s infidelity was nothing compared to the pain I felt knowing I inflicted misery on my wife. And I was still going to do it, precisely because of that. I really was a masochistic motherfucker. Forcing her to stay was too dangerous for me and too destructive for her. I couldn’t hold onto her anymore, even if I wanted to. Now more than ever. She was my beauty, and I was her beast. But this was not a Disney flick. In real life, the beast goes back to his solitary life, a freak who lurks in the shadows and watches as his girl runs away back to the arms of her family. She was my only shot at a semblance of normalcy and happiness, and I had to let her go. I got up from my seat. Walking in here, I thought I would never want to turn around and walk out. Thought I’d milk this conversation until the very last drop, get more time with her one last time before we said goodbye. But it turned out that when you really care, things don’t work that way. Her pain occupied the whole fucking room, invading my space and knocking me off my fucking ass, and I couldn’t tolerate it without feeling my pulse weaken and my body growing cold. I reached for the door, about to walk away from her for the very last time.

She returned to the floor, and a tray appeared beside her with a sandwich, glass of milk, and some cubes of cantaloupe. She didn't know who brought it in, but she picked up a piece of the cantaloupe and examined it. The color matched some of the roses in the lady's garden, exactly what she needed for the flowers she'd drawn behind her butterfly. Yellow, white, and a dab of red- she combined them on the plate until a soft peach colored her palette. Walter thought she should grow up, like the lady wanted Oliver to do, but grown-ups didn't spend their nights dancing in gardens. Or painting. "I will stay a girl forever," she whispered, changing the lyrics from 'Peter Pan.' "And be banished if I don't." She began to paint her butterfly. "I'll never grow up," she chanted as she worked. It wasn't until the first rays of dawn spilled across her paper that she began to feel sleepy. Her floor was covered with pictures and papers, but where others might see a mess, she saw a new world. There were flowers and trees and butterflies she'd brought to life with her hands. And her heart. A lot of people thought she wasn't good at anything, but it wasn't true. She was good at making things.

If you want the reader to feel intimately related to your subject, try a close-up shot. Describe the character, object or scene as if it were positioned directly in front of your eyes, close enough to touch. Let the reader see the hand-etched signature on the bottom of the wooden bowl or the white strip on the divorcée’s finger where a wedding ring once lay. Let him smell the heaviness of the milking barn after a night of rain, hear the squeak of the farmer’s rubber boots. If you want to get even closer, take the reader inside a character’s body and let him experience her world—the reeling nausea of Lydia’s first morning sickness, the tenderness of her breasts, the metallic taste in her mouth—from the inside out. Then, when you need to establish distance, to remove the reader from the scene as Shirley Jackson did in “The Lottery,” pull back. Describe your object from a great distance. The wooden bowl is no longer a hand-crafted, hand-signed original, or if it is, you can’t tell from where you’re standing. The pregnant woman is no longer Lydia-of-the-tender-breasts; she’s one of dozens of other faceless women seated in the waiting room of the county clinic. As you vary the physical distance between your describer and the subjects being described, you may find that your personal connection with your subjects is altered. Physical closeness often presages emotional closeness. Consider how it is possible that kind and loving men (like my father, who served in three wars) are capable of dropping bombs on “enemy” villages. One factor is their physical distance from their targets. The scene changes dramatically when they face a villager eye to eye; no longer is the enemy a tiny dot darting beneath the shadow of their planes, or a blip on the radar screen. No, this “enemy” has black hair flecked with auburn and a scar over her left eyebrow; she’s younger than the wives they left behind. If

Like a fire alarm going off in your ear, sulfur up your nose, mouth full of sour milk, reality is what it is – you deal with it.

Lucky for us, there wasn’t anyone in line. I ordered a cup of house brew, black. Shamus ordered half a cup of house brew. Then he proceeded to fill the cup up the rest of the way with milk and sugar. Lots of sugar. “Sure you got enough milk in your sugar?” I asked as we strolled out of the shop and headed south. He flipped me off. “You drink your coffee your way, and I’ll drink my coffee the right way.

Your prim faith in the True Sect’s canon serves naught. The temple preaches a loveless morality that cares not one jot for the plight of our livelihood. The priests are fat parasites, theosophizing on their rumps while folk like us break our backs, milked dry by their tithes and their rote obligations. Where does their doctrine show the least concern for our chance to enjoy the fruits of our happiness?

Do we have anything chocolate in this kitchen? Anything?" "I think there's some chocolate syrup in the fridge. But we don't have any milk. Not that it was me who drank it. That would be the witch." Della glanced back at Kylie. Kylie reached into the refrigerator and found the chocolate syrup. Oh, hell, beggars couldn't be choosy. She squeezed a line of chocolate all the way up her index finger and popped the digit into her mouth. "So the meeting with the Brightens didn't go well?" Della asked. "No, it went fine," Kylie mumbled around her chocolate-covered finger. When the sweetness disappeared, she pulled her finger out and aimed the top of the bottle down and gave the digit another squirt of sweetness. "Then why are you sucking chocolate syrup off your finger like it's whiskey? Wait! I know why, I heard about the fiasco with your dad and mom-the whole pregnancy thing. Hilarious." Della dropped her elbows on the table and laughed."Not hilarious." Kylie frowned. "How did you hear about it?" Della shrugged, looking a little guilty for bringing it up. "Someone heard it go down. Everybody was talking about it. Sorry." She made an apology face. Kylie moaned. "Will I ever stop being the source of gossip around here?" She held her head back and squeezed a good squirt of chocolate straight into her mouth. "Now that's gross!" Della chuckled. Kylie brought the bottle down and licked her lips. "I didn't touch my lips to the bottle. I just poured it into my mouth." "And on your chin." Frowning, Kylie wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "Sorry, I'm feeling desperate." She snagged a bowl and spoon and went back to the table and emptied a half a cup of the sweet feel-good stuff into her bowl. "Damn," Della said. "You are feeling desperate." Kylie scooped a spoonful of chocolate into her mouth, licked the spoon clean and said, "Monique crawled into the stall with me." "Who? What stall?" "Monique. Lucas's Monique. She climbed into the bathroom stall with me in the restaurant bathroom." "Oh, shit! Did you two like duke it out or something?" "No." Kylie licked the spoon. "I just peed all over myself." She took another spoonful of chocolate into her mouth. Della sighed. "Are you okay?" "I will be after I finish off this bottle," Kylie said. Della half grinned. "If I was a real friend, I'd stop you from drinking it." Kylie shook her head. "If you were a real friend, you'd help me finish it." "Shit. Why not?" She pushed over her glass of blood. "Give me a couple of shots." Kylie arched an eyebrow. "For real?" "Yeah." Della pushed her schoolbooks to the side. "Screw homework, let's get drunk off chocolate. I could use a pick-me-up, too.

So those three milking under the trees seemed actually present to me for an hour. As Giles 'tugged' (how his polite diction slips from him when he gets down to the job) he would see what I saw, gazing up into that elm; gleams of near-crimson lighting the budding tips of the boughs, boughs that go gesturing up mightily form the trunk, then curve over and hang down delicately. For the eye dwells on a thing as one milks, a bit of bruised concrete, a big spider in a cobweb up in the cowhouse roof; I can see them yet. To look up into such a maze of boughs day by day, and see the bare wood bursting open with new life: wine-dark buds, then the first green, till later he sat under a roof of the small elm leaves scattering coin-like shadows all around him, such would have been Giles's lot.

Creation Myth I'm the great-grandson of a sheep farmer, child of sumacs, trash trees shedding their ancient scales. I'm drawn from fair grass on the north end, my molecules spat from coal and cattle, the Indiana dusk. I'm notes scrawled on freezer paper, the one looped oven mitt Aunt Bev crocheted while the baby lay feverish in its crib. I rise from a day gone thin as Cousin Ceily, who wore her cancer wigs to church. I come from boys unfastening in the 4-H bathroom, the stink of urinal cakes, dirty hands that scratched an itch. I breathe in arc welders and air compressors. I breathe out milk leaking from nurse cows, Uncle Jake's spoiled old bitches. I'm run through with moths and meth labs, a child of the KKK, men who lynched Tom Shipp from a split oak in Marion, August 1930. My cells carry his shadow swaying over uncut grass. They carry my second third cousin cheering in the back. I rise from aphids in honeysuckle, egg yolks flecked with blood. Born one humid summer night, my body hums like a black cricket, transmitting August across the fields. I sing till my throat bleeds. I smoke like a pan of scorched sugar. I'll never forget the miracle of firecrackers, freezer meat, murky gray lemonade. I'm born to thunder in the veins, a child of form, a rusted gasket ring, some disenchanted thing, the promise of a worm.

But now the streets were not like the streets she knew. They were so silent: and so empty. On the doorsteps, little groups of milk bottles huddled with their dirty white collars, waiting for the roundsman to collect them next morning and take them off to be washed and spruced up and sent out on duty again… In the areas, the dustbins spilled forth unsightly contents, relentless reminders of man’s mortality: now and again the air still gave a tiny sigh, and a whiff of decay was borne away upon the breeze. The plane trees rustled, whispering a message from the dustbins: ‘All is rottenness, all is death…’, the high street lamps cast shadows in angled walls that seemed as black and bottomless as eternity. A couple reeling home late from a party were swallowed up by a dark doorway: already the glow and the rapture were fading—tomorrow there would be sick headaches and queasy tummies… Beauty vanishes—beauty passes…Only the cats were heedless and unafraid, darting across the patchwork shadows of the streets on plush-cushioned, soundless paws. What threat had death and decay and nothingness?—to a sleek, suave gentleman with nine lives before him and every one packed with adventure that had nothing to do with death—on the contrary!

Macdonald drove on up the hill to the little plateau between inn and manor and church. Every south-facing wall was white in the moonlight, white as milk: every thatch gleamed with the faintest tinge of gold on its well-combed surface, and beneath the eaves the shadows were purple black.

Somewhere between four and five, when the spring afternoon ended and the spring evening began, the people filled with sardines and soda crackers, their dry throats moistened with canned tomatoes and soda pop, began to sing. The day that had begun in peace was ending in war. People had shadows the size and shape of peaked tombstones. Blueness, fold on fold, enveloped the foothills. The stomp of oil wells deep inside the earth was felt. Meadow larks and blackbirds were suddenly quiet, then, as if resisting the oncoming night, sang loudly. Raunce's cow bawled to be milked. Old Saddle Back was rosy above the valley's shadows. The April summer evening, the first of the war, came down with melancholy softness and beauty.

Empire Builders seek to surround themselves with A players. But unlike Talent Magnets, they accumulate talent to appear smarter and more powerful. The leader glosses over the real genius of the people while placing them into boxes on the org chart. The A players have limited impact and start to look more like A– or B+. They fail to get noticed for their work, and they lose intellectual confidence. They begin to recede into the shadow of the Empire Builder. Their value in the job market drops and opportunities begin to evaporate. So they stay and wait, hoping things will turn around. This cycle of degeneration impacts not only one person; it infects an entire organization. The organization becomes an elephant graveyard earning a reputation as “the place people go to die.” As one technology superstar said of his empty vice president job, “I’m definitely past my sell-by date here.” The resignation in his voice made it clear: if he were milk, he’d be curdled.

It was a charming falsehood she often told herself, that the act of reading was something akin to a cup of warm milk in literary form, that only a few pages read would see her eyes droop and her thoughts grow weary before she would swiftly succumb to blissful slumber…and then she would sit awake half the night, each page imprinting itself in the place of another lost minute of dreams…a far more accurate description would be to say that the smudged ink from each word accumulated beneath her eyes into a telltale shadow of forfeited sleep and few regrets.

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease. Carried out of the lungs with each cough are thousands of fluid droplets, plumes of minuscule crusaders. Some of them will contain the tiny rod-shaped TB bacteria, each only three-thousandths of a millimetre long. The fluid droplets themselves start off fairly big, perhaps a few tenths of a millimetre. These droplets are being pulled downwards by gravity and once they hit the floor, at least they’re not going anywhere else. But it doesn’t happen quickly, because it’s not just liquids that are viscous. Air is too – it has to be pushed out of the way as things move through it. As the droplets drift downwards, they are bumped and jostled by air molecules that slow their descent. Just as the cream rises slowly through viscous milk to the top of the bottle, these droplets are on course to slide through the viscous air to reach the floor. Except they don’t. Most of that droplet is water, and in the first few seconds in the outside air, that water evaporates. What was a droplet big enough for gravity to pull it through the viscous air now becomes a mere speck, a shadow of its former self. If it was originally a droplet of spit with a tuberculosis bacterium floating about in it, it’s now a tuberculosis bacterium neatly packaged up in some leftover organic crud. The gravitational pull on this new parcel is no match for the buffeting of the air. Wherever the air goes, the bacterium goes. Like the miniaturized fat droplets in today’s homogenized milk, it’s just a passenger. And if it lands in a person with a weak immune system, it might start a new colony, growing slowly until new bacteria are ready to be coughed out all over again.

Well,” she says as she saunters closer to me, her dimple a shadow of restrained amusement as she keeps her eyes fused to the plain white tub in her hand. She’s still reading the homemade label when she draws to a halt in front of me. “I might never look at ice cream the same way again.” “I don’t want to know.” “Ingredients: cream—” “Sloane—” “Sugar—” “I’m begging you,” I say, but as soon as beg leaves my lips, Sloane’s grin ignites. My stomach flips in the most uncomfortable way. Sloane clears her throat. “‘ Semen, milked April tenth to April thirteenth.’ That’s an interesting substitute to salt—” I push past her and vomit in the sink to the sound of her traitorous laugh. Christ, I thought there wasn’t anything left, but I was wrong. It takes a long moment to recover myself before I can rinse my mouth and the sink, my breath and balance both unsteady.

Shaved Pussy vs. Occam's Razor Her pussy was shaved and elegant, stripped to its bare essence, without the unruly tangle of unkempt assumptions or broken promises. Like the windows of a cathedral, her honey pot illuminated shadow, sans the gratuitous mechanisms of pivots, friction or butt hinges. Yea, let us fall to knees and pray, lips pressed to the holy grail. O Lord, help me bring this maiden to the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. God, I am uplifted by your beloved gift, unworthy of your bounty. Now, I shall spell the Lord's Prayer in Latin, let every letter be enunciated... et ne nos inducas in tentationem; lead us not into temptation, but into elation. I hear her coming. Amen

Father God, I cannot deny the obvious, You & I are one. What you have, I have. You are like air to my lungs, grass to my ground, stars to my moon & water to my fish. You are my spiritual, eternal Father. Always be with me and guide me. Help me to be a man of spirituality and less fleshly. Be my guide like that shadow following the sun as the earth rotates, never abandoning its guiding direction.

Do you take milk with your tea?’ Sidney asked. ‘Of course. But never in first . . .’ Sidney smiled. ‘I am not the kind of vicar who would do such a thing.’ ‘I never suspected that you were; but it’s sometimes necessary to say so to avoid disaster.

Today, we do not speak or write much about the face of motherhood that has been left in the shadows. Instead, we thrive on two dominant teachings: the traditional view that says motherhood is our most sacred and significant obligation and we should give up everything else for this duty; and the “modern” women’s magazine view that portrays the quintessential “superwoman” who has a career, husband and children and is able to satisfy everyone’s needs at home and at work. As different as these two views seem to be, they have one thing in common: They both focus solely on what they want to see, disregarding the complexity and intensity of motherhood, and the way in which it transforms a woman and her crystal heart.

Unlike the Japanese tattoo, which flows over the contours of the body like a river over stones, the Americans cover their arms with a hodgepodge of unsightly, obvious designs—hearts, anchors, flags, and the like. I suppose an upstart country like the United States doesn’t have any folklore or tradition to draw upon, but still, there’s no excuse for the total lack of artistry. No imagination. And the shading techniques are appallingly primitive, like something from the Stone Age! The subtle shadowing that sets the Japanese tattoo apart is achieved by the use of natural pigments which are applied with immeasurable skill by a true artist manipulating a variety of needles, with each bundle of needles encased in a wooden handle. But the Americans! They use a single needle, which is why their designs are as thin as a bowl of milk that’s been left out in the rain.

I looked out the hall window across from me as I stood leaning against the wall, and saw the bars on the outside of the windows. The rain trickled down the reinforced misted milk-glass in a constant deluge of melancholy rivulets. It was getting cold - the shadows, the rising turbulent winds, the drifting red and orange leaves were returning once more. I tuned out the sounds of the doctors voices. Soon, I couldn't make out the words they were saying as definite signals meant to convey something. Their words became a dim humming, a song drifting along the periphery of my awareness. And it was then, I knew I would be able to leave. I would go back to my room and take out the violet silk dress, the monstrous talisman I had created, and I would look at it. I might give it away after all. I need to let her go for all the ghosts she carried within her every measured stitch.

On Saturday morning, he'd chosen his favorite place in Taipei to show me, Chung-shan Park. We wandered on a beautiful walking path around a lake with spraying fountains, surrounded by trees, and under the shadow of Taipei's iconic skyscraper, which was called Taipei 101. It was a great place for people-watching, with young couples on romantic walks, parents pushing babies in strollers, older people practicing tai chi, kids riding bikes, and nature lovers snapping photos of flowers. Best of all were the baobing- delicious shaved ices with a super-thin texture and condensed milk that added an extra sweet flavor. I topped my baobing with mango chunks, while Uncle Masa chose sweet potato chunks on his, an addition I never imagined could be delicious until I sampled his for myself.

From the boy came a yammer of pleading: “My knife, my good knife! Oh where will I get another? Give me back my property!” Neither Myron nor Schwatzendale heeded the plea. From the shadows the boy called out in fury, “Ugly milk-fed tourists! Go back to your wallow! In two more seconds I would have had the squonk’s hide, and now I have lost my knife!” Myron and Schwatzendale returned to the flitter. As they flew back down to Sholo, Myron asked, “What is a ‘squonk’?” Schwatzendale reflected, then said at last, “I believe it to be some sort of hairless white rat.

It is essential to this sort of ideas that they be 'veiled with shadows,' appear 'under a disguise.' They give us the assurance that the 'great unpenetrated and discouraging night of our soul' is not empty, is not 'nothingness'; but these entities, these domains, these worlds that line it, people it, and whose presence it feels like the presence of someone in the dark, have been acquired only through its commerce with the visible, to which they remain attached. As the secret blackness of milk, of which Valéry spoke, is accessible only through its whiteness, the idea of light or the musical idea doubles up the lights and sounds from beneath, is their other side or their depth. Their carnal texture presents to us what is absent from all flesh; it is a furrow that traces itself out magically under our eyes without a tracer, a certain hollow, a certain interior, a certain absence, a negativity that is not nothing, being limited very precisely to these five notes between which it is instituted, to that family of sensibles we call lights. We do not see, do not hear the ideas, and not even with the mind's eye or with the third ear: and yet they are there, behind the sounds or between them, behind the lights or between them, recognizable through their always special, always unique manner of entrenching themselves behind them, 'perfectly distinct from one another, unequal among themselves in value and in significance.

Happiness could be felt as a pressure, too, Louis realized, more hard-edged and solid than longing, even. In Clarinda he had yearned for better in a formless way, desire like a gray milk churn; in fact he'd been so poor in Iowa that he couldn't settle on one concrete noun to wish for -- a real father? A girl in town? A thousand acres? A single friend? In contrast, this new happiness had angles. Happiness like his was real; it had a jewel-cut shadow, and he could lose it.

Once you kill him, I’ll force you to your knees in his blood. My dirty slut will suck me off and milk me dry.

Gather the moments when life comes in soft whispers, for it is the milk, it is the honey of tender times that keeps the river wild inside. Ecstasy is its name, the twin of agony. How deeply delight and torment play as light and shadow, shaping the full face of life!