Shifting Mound Quotes

For a split second, the space around Werner tears in half, as though the last molecules of oxygen have been ripped out of it. Then shards of stone and wood and metal streak past, ringing against his helmet, sizzling into the wall behind them, and Volkheimer’s barricade collapses, and everywhere in the darkness, things scuttle and slide, and he cannot find any air to breathe. But the detonation creates some tectonic shift in the building’s rubble, and there is a snap followed by multiple cascades in the darkness. When Werner stops coughing and pushes the debris off his chest, he finds Volkheimer staring up at a single sheared hole of purple light. Sky. Night sky. A shaft of starlight slices through the dust and drops along the edge of a mound of rubble to the floor. For a moment Werner inhales it. Then Volkheimer urges him back and climbs halfway up the ruined staircase and begins whaling away at the edges of the hole with a piece of rebar. The iron clangs and his hands lacerate and his six-day beard glows white with dust, but Werner can see that Volkheimer makes quick progress: the sliver of light becomes a violet wedge, wider across than two of Werner’s hands. With one more blow, Volkheimer manages to pulverize a big slab of debris, much of it crashing onto his helmet and shoulders, and then it is simply a matter of scrabbling and climbing. He squeezes his upper body through the hole, his shoulders scraping on the edges, his jacket tearing, hips twisting, and then he’s through.

Approximately eight hundred skeletons from the Dickson Mounds in the lower Illinois Valley have been analyzed. They reveal a clear picture of the health changes that accompanied the shift from foraging to corn farming around 1200 AD. Archaeologist George Armelagos and his colleagues reported that the farmers’ remains show a 50 percent increase in chronic malnutrition, and three times the incidence of infectious diseases (indicated by bone lesions) compared with the foragers who preceded them. Furthermore, they found evidence of increased infant mortality, delayed skeletal growth in adults, and a fourfold increase in porotic hyperostosis, indicating iron-deficiency anemia in more than half the population.

But Stanley persisted in the kitchen, performing the small yet demanding apprentice's tasks she set for him- removing the skin from piles of almonds, grating snowy hills of lemon zest, the nightly sweeping of the kitchen floor and sponging of metal shelves. He didn't seem to mind: every day after school, he'd lean over the counter, watching her experiment with combinations- shifting flavors like the beads in a kaleidoscope- burnt sugar, hibiscus, rum, espresso, pear: dessert as a metaphor for something unresolvable. It was nothing like the slapdashery of cooking. Baking, to Avis, was no less precise than chemistry: an exquisite transfiguration. Every night, she lingered in the kitchen, analyzing her work, jotting notes, describing the way ingredients nestled: a slim layer of black chocolate hidden at the bottom of a praline tart, the essence of lavender stirred into a bowl of preserved wild blueberries. Stanley listened to his mother think out loud: he asked her questions and made suggestions- like mounding lemon meringue between layers of crisp pecan wafers- such a success that her corporate customers ordered it for banquets and company retreats. On the day Avis is thinking of, she sat in the den where they watched TV, letting her hand swim over the silk of her daughter's hair, imagining a dessert pistou of blackberry, creme fraiche, and nutmeg, in which floated tiny vanilla croutons. Felice was her audience, Avis's picky eater- difficult to please. Her "favorites" changed capriciously and at times, it seemed, deliberately, so that after Avis set out what once had been, in Felice's words, "the best ever"- say, a miniature roulade Pavlova with billows of cream and fresh kumquat- Felice would announce that she was now "tired" of kumquats.

Wow,” she said. “That’s sure generous, that you’d do all that for me…” “For us, Marcie. I’ll get a bath after you. And tomorrow I’ll stop at the coin laundry and wash up the dirty clothes. I’ll take any of yours you’d like me to. Just because you haven’t been feeling too good…” She shifted from foot to foot, chewing on her lower lip. “What’s the matter? You don’t want a bath?” “I’d die for a bath,” she said. “It’s just that…I couldn’t help but notice, there doesn’t seem to be a separate room with a door that closes… And I also noticed that doesn’t seem to bother you too much.” The corners of his lips lifted. “I’ll load the truck with tomorrow’s wood while you have your bath,” he finally said. She thought about this for a second. “And I could sit in my car during your bath?” she suggested. “I don’t think so—your car is almost an igloo now. Just a little white mound. Not to mention mountain lions.” “Well, what am I supposed to do?” “Well, you can take a nap, read a little of my book, or close your eyes. Or you could stare—get the thrill of your life.” She put her hands on her hips. “You really wouldn’t care, would you?” “Not really. A bath is a serious business when it’s that much trouble. And it’s pretty quick in winter.” He started to chuckle. “What’s so funny?” she asked, a little irritated. “I was just thinking. It’s cold enough in here, you might not see that much.” Her cheeks went hot, so she pretended not to understand. “But in summer, you can lay in the tub all afternoon?” “In summer, I wash in the creek.” He grinned at her. “Why don’t you comb the snarls out of your hair? You look like a wild banshee.” She stared at him a minute, then said, “Don’t flirt with me. It won’t do you any good.” Then she coughed for him, a long string of deep croaks that reminded them both she had had a good, solid flu. Also, it covered what happened to be amused laughter from him. While

The government’s answer to everything is to throw money at it, despite mounds and mounds of evidence that doing so doesn’t work. Unfortunately, the money being poured into entitlements has been successful at one thing—creating a shift in Americans’ attitudes about work and rewards. According to the Legatum Institute’s annual Prosperity Index, even though prosperity increased around the world between 2008 and 2012, it didn’t budge in the United States. In 2012, for the first time ever, the United States ranked outside the top ten out of 142 countries, at number twelve on the Prosperity Index.4

Burgers. But not just any burger. Here, try this.” I’m expecting tin foil wrapped mounds to come out of the fancy bag, but instead they’re extravagant boxes of some kind. Probably high-end organic, recycled cardboard originally harvested from sustainable seaweed beds or something.

get up from the bench, stalking back over to where she’s now restrained on the bed. I trail my knuckles up her shaking thigh, slowly, until I reach her swollen and slick pussy. Her worried gaze stays locked on mine as my hand reaches higher. Finally, I slide my middle finger along the wet slit, rolling up along her swollen clit. Her head falls back against the mattress and her body writhes beneath me. She blows air through her nose, whimpering against the tape, then brings her head back up to watch me. “Sopping mess, you are,” I say, removing my finger. I rub it along my bottom lip, then lick the side of the finger, tasting that sweet nectar again. Her hips shift at the loss of contact, as if she’s trying to seek it out again. I give her a quick slap right over her mound, and she jerks, pulling against her restraints as the duct tape captures her cries.

Shift said, ‘And what if the hillsides your houses are on slip into the valleys, and everything is buried in mud? What if the wind flattens your houses, or floods wash them off their foundations? What if you’re all like too many mound-building birds in the same forest—you get so tired of stealing each other’s twigs and sticks that no nests are finished, and no chicks hatch? You can’t keep doing everything over, so you sit down in the ruins and starve. What if that? What if the floods sweep the soil into the sea, and the sea seeps up through the land and turns it sour? What if the conditions for civilisation are gone?’ Taryn

the game’s fan base after the strike of 1994 that had cancelled the World Series—latched on to the home run as a marketing tool. Fans liked it, and if steroids helped fuel the home-run frenzy, so be it. The tacit sanctioning of steroids upset La Russa and other managers and coaches, and their unease wasn’t simply altruistic. Throughout the 1990s, several innovations had gradually shifted the game in the hitters’ favor: a lowered mound, added expansion teams (which enlarged and diluted the pool of pitching talent), new teacup-sized ballparks, a tighter strike zone. Add steroids to the list, because they gave strength to drive balls farther, and it was like “piling on,

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have scattered soot across the planet and relentlessly stirred in radioactive elements, inconceivable mounds of plastic, pesticides, excess nitrogen and phosphorus, billions of skeletons from livestock, and enough concrete to spread a kilogram over every square metre of the Earth. Each year mining shifts three times more rock and dirt than all the world’s rivers, and humans are reconfiguring the course of evolution as we rearrange species across continents and eliminate many more.

A Chilly Night" I rose at the dead of night, And went to the lattice alone To look for my Mother’s ghost Where the ghostly moonlight shone. My friends had failed one by one, Middle-aged, young, and old, Till the ghosts were warmer to me Than my friends that had grown cold. I looked and I saw the ghosts Dotting plain and mound: They stood in the blank moonlight, But no shadow lay on the ground: They spoke without a voice And they leaped without a sound. I called: ‘O my Mother dear,’— I sobbed: ‘O my Mother kind, Make a lonely bed for me And shelter it from the wind. ‘Tell the others not to come To see me night or day: But I need not tell my friends To be sure to keep away.’ My Mother raised her eyes, They were blank and could not see: Yet they held me with their stare While they seemed to look at me. She opened her mouth and spoke; I could not hear a word, While my flesh crept on my bones And every hair was stirred. She knew that I could not hear The message that she told Whether I had long to wait Or soon should sleep in the mould: I saw her toss her shadowless hair And wring her hands in the cold. I strained to catch her words, And she strained to make me hear; But never a sound of words Fell on my straining ear. From midnight to the cockcrow I kept my watch in pain While the subtle ghosts grew subtler In the sad night on the wane. From midnight to the cockcrow I watched till all were gone, Some to sleep in the shifting sea And some under turf and stone: Living had failed and dead had failed, And I was indeed alone.

Relax,” he said again, his voice deep and soothing. I made a conscious effort to slow my breathing and release the tension my muscles were under. I was like a wound spring, ready to pop at any moment.  The feather ran up my leg, leaving goosebumps in its wake. My vision blank, all of other my senses were screaming at me. The feel of the feather, the musky and sweet smell, the sound of his voice, the taste of his tongue. The feather traveled up my inner thigh and I shivered again. It grazed my mound, reversed direction, then back again. I imagined Logan staring at my body, his dark eyes burning, and I felt the heat rise between my thighs. The feather continued its magical path, running up my stomach, between my breasts, across the skin of my throat, then touched my chin. I felt the bed shift beneath me, and Logan’s presence grew. The suddenly his mouth was there, kissing me, pressing against me. His tongue flicked again, and mine returned the gesture hungrily. I reached up and placed my hand on the back of his head, willing him towards me, but he pulled away. Again the feeling