Skipping Rocks Quotes

Thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, either while skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass doors of a museum. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your walk, and as you think about more and more things you are liable to feel heavier and heavier, until you are so burdened you cannot take any further steps, and can only sit and stare at the gentle movements of the ocean waves or security guards, thinking too hard bout too many things to do anything else.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

I feel like a rock being skipped through the ocean—pain, relief, pain again, relief again, eventually destined to sink.

You stopped for food on the way, Leyten,” Sigzil said. “Even Rock beat your time, and he was skipping like a girl the last third.” “Was Horneater dance of victory,” Rock said from near Leyten. “Is very manly.

Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.'' -The boy in the striped Pajamas

Like most fourteen-year-olds, she was right-handed, so the rocks skipped farther across the murky water when Violet used her right hand then when she used her left.

In his imagination he had thought that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had respect for their elders, not like the children nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived here would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. He had thought that there would be a shop in the centre, and maybe a small café like the ones he had known in Berlin; he had wondered whether there would be a fruit and vegetable stalls. As it turned out, all the things that he thought might be there - weren't.

Sorrow's a tall mountain you climb one inch at a time. You ain't supposed to do it quick; else you won't profit from the journey.

Loosen up. Don't you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? . . , Someday you are going to retire; why not today? Not retire from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it? Let someone else run the world for a while.

The cold night air outside was like a slap in the face. If I wasn't in Naughty Girl Martini Land, I would have sobered instantly. Unfortunately, I was deep in Naughty Girl Martini Land. So deep, I was skipping dazedly through the Naughty Girl Martini forest and leaping over the Naughty Girl Martini streams, completely oblivious to everything.

Gossip's like jam; it don't bear fruit if you don't spread it.

Along with the punctuality gene, the liar gene had skipped out on me as well. I was officially the world's worst liar. I could've won and award for it. Whenever I tried to mimic a serious expression, I ended up looking like I was half-retarded

Noel shook his head. "You think better of this scene than I do, Ruby. Don't you see how fake those girls are? Let it go. Have a laugh about it when you're older. Forget that junk." I wanted to believe him, to skip off to some punk-rock hangout and develop ironic distance and start over in a universe where it didn't matter what any of these people thought about me. But I couldn't. I just loved them.

Tell me why, Been. Why would you trick us in the first place?" Ben stopped pacing. Looked directly at me. "Don't you know?' I shook my head,confused. "To impress you, Victoria Brennan." His voice cracked. "I wanted you to think that I was special." The words rocked me. Oh, Ben. "He'd started this madness... for me? 'You were spending all that time with Jason," Ben said softly, staring at his shoes. "skipping around town with your new perfect guy. Cotillion this. fund-raiser that. I hated it. Hated him. When I finally told Rome, he said that I needed to amaze you. Said I needed to figure out a way to make you see me.

Tell me why, Ben. Why would you want to trick us in the first place?” Ben stopped pacing. Looked directly at me. “Don’t you know?” I shook my head, confused. “To impress you, Victoria Brennan.” His voice cracked. “I wanted you to think I was special.” The words rocked me. Oh, Ben. He’d started this madness . . . for me? “You were spending all that time with Jason,” Ben said softly, staring at his shoes. “Skipping around town with your new perfect guy. Cotillion this. Fund-raiser that. I hated it. Hated him. When I finally told Rome, he said I needed to amaze you. Said I needed to figure out a way to make you see me.” “I see you, Ben.” I rose and grabbed his hand. “I always have. You’re in my pack.” He pulled away. “What if being packmates isn’t enough for me?

When I started writing I wanted the best tools. I skipped right over chisels on rocks, stylus on wet clay plates, quills and fountain pens, even mechanical pencils, and went straight to one of the first popular spin-offs of the aerospace program: the ballpoint pen. They were developed for comber navigators in the war because fountain pens would squirt all over your leather bomber jacket at altitude. (I have a cherished example of the next generation ballpoint, a pressurized Space Pen cleverly designed to work in weightlessness, given to me by Spider Robinson. At least, I cherish it when I can find it. It is also cleverly designed to seek out the lowest point of your desk, roll off, then find the lowest point on the floor, under a heavy piece of furniture. That's because it is cylindrical and lacks a pocket clip to keep it from rolling. In space, I presume it would float out of your pocket and find a forgotten corner of your spacecraft to hide in. NASA spent $3 million developing it. Good job, guys. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.)

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind any more, that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

Since I was a very small boy, traveling from town to town, three hundred days a year, I learned to love this life. The cradlelike rock and sway of the train, the hospitality of our countrymen, the gentle hearts of our countrywomen. You will find that, as long as you keep moving, there is no end to the delights awaiting you. But you must keep moving, Feliu. Even when the heart skips; even when the view blurs.

Lilly's something old was the love her husband-to-be had carried in his heart since he was just a boy. Her something new was the renewel of that love. Something blue was ever second they would ever be apart. There was nothing borrowed. Everything from here on out was for keeps.

I hate the small looking-glass on the stairs," said Jinny. "It shows our heads only; it cuts off our heads...So I skip up the stairs past them, to the next landing, where the long glass hangs, and I see myself entire. I see my body and head in one now; for even in this serge frock they are one, my body and my head. Look, when I move my head I ripple all down my narrow body; even my thin legs rippled like a stalk in the wind. I flicker between the set face of Susan and Rhoda's vagueness; I leap like one of those flames that run between the cracks of the earth; I move, I dance, I never cease to move and dance. I move like the leaf that moved in the hedge as a child and frightened me. i dance over these streaked, these impersonal, distempered walls with their yellow skirting as firelight dances over teapots. i catch fire even from women's cold eyes. when I read, a purple rim runs around the black edge of the textbook. yet I cannot follow any word through its changes. I cannot follow any thought from present to past. I do not stand lost, like Susan, with tears in my eyes remembering home; or lie, like Rhoda, crumpled among the ferns, staining my pink cotton green, while I dream of plants that flower under the sea, and rocks through which the fish swim slowly. I do not dream.

The following spring was a time of calving. Great icebergs calved from the vast glaciers which stretched down to our fjords from distant mountains. The heifers and cows of Kaupangen gave birth to over one hundred calves that spring. Most survived. Gudrod, the master shepherd, had seventy-five new lambkins skipping after their mothers. Ten sets of lamb twins were born in the city that year. Bitches had pups suckling at their breasts. The mountain goats that stood watch over the fjord, indifferently chewing on the wild grasses between the rocks, had kids following them on their steep paths. The residents of the city, too, gave birth. Twenty-one new healthy babies were born within thirty days of the spring equinox; boys and girls with thick blonde, brown, black, or red hair; others with smooth bald heads. Olaf, my third father, my king, had a son, stillborn. Olaf wept. Kenna wept. I wept as the boy was buried inside the casket with his mother in our graveyard by the church.

Those decisions seem easy for some and, sure, you could say those people are just the shallow puddles we trudge through, but I would argue that those people are lucky because right now as I watch this girl—the past me—looking serenely self-possessed, I know that she is standing on a great precipice. I can tell by looking at her that she is the still water you only ever skip rocks over. The world as she knows it is about to be turned upside down, and if she doesn’t learn to swim, her own depth will drown her. I feel a strong desire to whisper “surrender,” but I don’t. Like everyone in this airport, she is headed somewhere, possibly the first stop on that brutal journey of self-discovery. Like the rest of us, she will have to learn the hard way that we are not always in control. Sometimes it takes the love of others to show us who we really are.

The rock spun out of his hand so fast, she heard it buzz through the air. It skimmed across the water, hop after hop like a leapfrog racing across the water. It went on and on until it had crossed the lake and had hopped onto the opposite shore. “Well,” he mused softly, a masculine taunt in his voice, “I would say that about wraps things up. Twenty-two skips all the way to the other side.” He sounded very complacent. “I believe you get to be my slave and brush my hair for me at each rising.” Francesca shook her head. “What I believe is, you rigged this wager. You did something to win.” “It is called practice. I have spent much time skipping rocks across the lake.” Francesca laughed softly. “You are not telling the truth, Gabriel. I don’t believe you ever skipped a rock in your life until now. You tricked me.” “You think?” He asked it innocently. Too innocently. “You know you did. Just to win a silly bet. I can’t believe you.” He reached out to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, making her heart leap wildly. “It was not just a silly bet, honey, it was a way to get you to brush my hair. No one has ever done such a thing for me and I think I crave attention.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose again and grinned at her almost boyishly. “I asked Lucian to do so once and he threatened to beat me to a bloody pulp.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Some things are just not worth it, you know.

What use would God have for a sinner like me?' 'We're all sinners' Lilly said. 'The ground at the foot of the cross is even.

You can trust me with your heart, Jade. From now until I breathe my last breath.

A brother's advice should be how to skip a rock or how to sneak out without your parents knowing - not how to survive starvation and persecution.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped

I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?

Refreshed, delighted, invigorated, I walked along, forgetting all my cares, feeling as if I had wings to my feet, and could go at least forty miles without fatigue, and experiencing a sense of exhilaration to which I had been an entire stranger since the days of early youth. About half–past six, however, the grooms began to come down to air their masters’ horses—first one, and then another, till there were some dozen horses and five or six riders: but that need not trouble me, for they would not come as far as the low rocks which I was now approaching. When I had reached these, and walked over the moist, slippery sea–weed (at the risk of floundering into one of the numerous pools of clear, salt water that lay between them), to a little mossy promontory with the sea splashing round it, I looked back again to see who next was stirring. Still, there were only the early grooms with their horses, and one gentleman with a little dark speck of a dog running before him, and one water–cart coming out of the town to get water for the baths. In another minute or two, the distant bathing machines would begin to move, and then the elderly gentlemen of regular habits and sober quaker ladies would be coming to take their salutary morning walks. But however interesting such a scene might be, I could not wait to witness it, for the sun and the sea so dazzled my eyes in that direction, that I could but afford one glance; and then I turned again to delight myself with the sight and the sound of the sea, dashing against my promontory—with no prodigious force, for the swell was broken by the tangled sea–weed and the unseen rocks beneath; otherwise I should soon have been deluged with spray. But the tide was coming in; the water was rising; the gulfs and lakes were filling; the straits were widening: it was time to seek some safer footing; so I walked, skipped, and stumbled back to the smooth, wide sands, and resolved to proceed to a certain bold projection in the cliffs, and then return.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who could be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.” I don’t recognize my own voice once the words rake up my chest and from my throat in a low grumble. “You were not supposed to happen.” … “Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done to my head?” I don’t give her a chance to answer. “You’re all I can think about.

i did not mind anymore that i lost when we raced and i lost when we swam out to the rocks and i lost we tossed spears or skipped stones. for who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? it was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kciked up the sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled throuhg the salt. it was enough.

I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

i did not mind anymore that i lost when we raced and i lost when we swam out to the rocks and i lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. for who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? it was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kciked up the sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled throuhg the salt. it was enough.

You look exhausted,” she said. “Everyone else has already eaten their dinner, but I’m sure you’re hungry too.” I shrugged. “I just want to be alone. Maybe I’ll take a walk through the gardens.” As I started out the door, Aurelia said, “I want to be alone too. Do you think you and I could be alone together?” My heart skipped a beat, and I looked around us again, not sure of whether I wanted this moment to be interrupted. “That’s not a good idea.” She sighed. “I’m going to come with you, Nic. It’s only a question of whether I’ll walk beside you or behind you. I warn you, though, if I must follow, then I’m going to throw rocks at the back of your head.” “Well, we can’t have that.” I smiled, then motioned for her to come with me. “Let’s go be alone together.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such a beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

I have sought out storms all my life, without thinking much about why. Long before we knew better, my sisters and I played with lightning on the crest of the Rocky Mountains, reaching our hands towards rocks. The closer we came, the more furiously the rocks buzzed with electricity. We skipped and spun mindlessly in the electric charges, creating music with our bodies…what reed in the human spirit vibrates with the violence of storms?

How’d you like to hang out with me in my bus after the show?” I drop my head back, pray for patience, and look back to find Ansel staring heatedly at my neck. “Is that code for ‘do you wanna go fuck after I get off work’? Because I gotta tell you, I’ve heard that about a thousand times too many, and hearing it again makes me want to go Lorena Bobbitt all over the nearest penis.” Ansel’s face grows impossibly paler, and he cups his junk.

You should’ve told us!” “You wouldn’t have let me help!” Ben shot back. “This whole nightmare was my fault. I needed to find that psycho and stop him. If I’d told you guys the truth, you’d have shut me out. Then we found the corpse, and … and …” He shook his head. “It was too late. Things were crazy. All I could do was try to prevent whatever evil Rome had planned.” I held up a hand. Couldn’t handle any more of his confession. Unwittingly or not, Ben had assisted a monster. A killer. He’d known the truth for days, and never told us. He’d lied. Even when The Game had threatened our lives. “Tell me why, Ben. Why would you want to trick us in the first place?” Ben stopped pacing. Looked directly at me. “Don’t you know?” I shook my head, confused. “To impress you, Victoria Brennan.” His voice cracked. “I wanted you to think I was special.” The words rocked me. Oh, Ben. He’d started this madness … for me? “You were spending all that time with Jason,” Ben said softly, staring at his shoes. “Skipping around town with your new perfect guy. Cotillion this. Fund-raiser that. I hated it. Hated him. When I finally told Rome, he said I needed to amaze you. Said I needed to figure out a way to make you see me.” “I see you, Ben.” I rose and grabbed his hand. “I always have. You’re in my pack.” He pulled away. “What if being packmates isn’t enough for me?” I was speechless. Code, Kathy Reichs

He liked the splash of the river and the night things that gathered there: katydids and crickets, frogs and cicadas. At night the smell of the river overtook his house. It smelled of everything it had passed on its way to him. It smelled of homes with families in them; of girls that sat in stiff chairs, painting their toenails and dreaming of far-off places; of boys who skipped rocks on the river's surface to break up the moonlight. The river at night carried the scent of untamed mountains and long, cool fields where dew settled first and sunlight hit last in the mornings.

This is the day I begin to hate winter. The snow is a burden, stained brown and black and piled high on the shoulder of the road, eventually freezing into chunks of sharp ice. Rock salt on the road clings to the paint of cars and gives them a ghostly veneer. Pine trees lie between garbage cans with slivers of Christmas tinsel still clinging to the needles, reminding me that the New Year has only just begun. And even when the sky is clear and free of clouds, the sunshine only illuminates dead, brown trees and empty flower beds. This is the day I wish the year would end in November and skip to March. Icicles hang from the grill of my

He played my mother’s lyre, and I watched. When it was my turn to play, my fingers tangled in the strings and the teacher despaired of me. I did not care. “Play again,” I told him. And he played until I could barely see his fingers in the dark. I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

They started calling people my grandfather’s age “generation ink”. He represents the era when extensive tattoos tipped into the mainstream. Now the old men and women sit together in the lounge room of my grandfather’s nursing home, watching daytime television. They don’t watch sport. Tattoos from their wrist to shoulders and across their chest, snake beneath their woolen cardigans and cotton shirts. Withered souls eternally painted in often incomprehensible scrawling. Faded colours. But that’s not to say that they regret getting inked. Far from it. It’s a part of who they are. As real and as precious as the blank skin they were born with. Their tastes in music haven’t mellowed either. They slowly approach the sound-system, leaning on their walking frame, and skip to songs by Pantera and Sepultura. Or Metallica, Slayer and Iron Maiden. My grandfather enjoyed punk and post-rock bands like Millencolin, Thursday, Coheed and Cambria or At The Drive-In.

You should’ve told us!” “You wouldn’t have let me help!” Ben shot back. “This whole nightmare was my fault. I needed to find that psycho and stop him. If I’d told you guys the truth, you’d have shut me out. Then we found the corpse, and … and …” He shook his head. “It was too late. Things were crazy. All I could do was try to prevent whatever evil Rome had planned.” I held up a hand. Couldn’t handle any more of his confession. Unwittingly or not, Ben had assisted a monster. A killer. He’d known the truth for days, and never told us. He’d lied. Even when The Game had threatened our lives. “Tell me why, Ben. Why would you want to trick us in the first place?” Ben stopped pacing. Looked directly at me. “Don’t you know?” I shook my head, confused. “To impress you, Victoria Brennan.” His voice cracked. “I wanted you to think I was special.” The words rocked me. Oh, Ben. He’d started this madness … for me? “You were spending all that time with Jason,” Ben said softly, staring at his shoes. “Skipping around town with your new perfect guy. Cotillion this. Fund-raiser that. I hated it. Hated him. When I finally told Rome, he said I needed to amaze you. Said I needed to figure out a way to make you see me.” “I see you, Ben.” I rose and grabbed his hand. “I always have. You’re in my pack.” He pulled away. “What if being packmates isn’t enough for me?” I was speechless. -Code, Reichs

Kell skimmed the spell and frowned. “An eternal flame?” Rhy absently plucked one of the lin from the floor and shrugged. “First thing I grabbed.” He tried to sound as if he didn’t care about the stupid spell, but his throat was tight, his eyes burning. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, skipping the coin across the ground as if it were a pebble on water. “I can’t make it work.” Kell shifted his weight, lips moving silently as he read over the priest’s scrawl. He held his hands above the paper, palms cupped as if cradling a flame that wasn’t even there yet, and began to recite the spell. When Rhy had tried, the words had fallen out like rocks, but on Kell’s lips, they were poetry, smooth and sibilant. The air around them warmed instantly, steam rising from the penned lines on the scroll before the ink drew in and up into a bead of oil, and lit. The flame hovered in the air between Kell’s hands, brilliant and white. He made it look so easy, and Rhy felt a flash of anger toward his brother, hot as a spark—but just as brief. It wasn’t Kell’s fault Rhy couldn’t do magic. Rhy started to rise when Kell caught his cuff. He guided Rhy’s hands to either side of the spell, pulling the prince into the fold of his magic. Warmth tickled Rhy’s palms, and he was torn between delight at the power and knowledge that it wasn’t his. “It isn’t right,” he murmured. “I’m the crown prince, the heir of Maxim Maresh. I should be able to light a blasted candle.” Kell chewed his lip—Mother never chided him for the habit—and then said, “There are different kinds of power.” “I would rather have magic than a crown,” sulked Rhy. Kell studied the small white flame between them. “A crown is a sort of magic, if you think about it. A magician rules an element. A king rules an empire.” “Only if the king is strong enough.” Kell looked up, then. “You’re going to be a good king, if you don’t get yourself killed first.” Rhy blew out a breath, shuddering the flame. “How do you know?” At that, Kell smiled. It was a rare thing, and Rhy wanted to hold fast to it—he was the only one who could make his brother smile, and he wore it like a badge—but then Kell said, “Magic,” and Rhy wanted to slug him instead. “You’re an arse,” he muttered

Merry Christmas.” he says quietly, pulling something from his back pocket. I frown in confusion then smile in delight when I see what it is. It’s a shiny, sharp trowel with a holly green handle. It’s stolen from the gardens for sure. It is the single greatest gift I’ve ever received. “It’s so pretty.” I whisper happily, turning it over to test its edge. “I promised you something shiny.” “And you delivered.” I press my finger against the tip then pull it back quickly. “It’s sharp.” “Why else have it, right? Keep it with you when you can. If something goes down while I’m gone I want to know you have it.” I nod my head as I slip it into my back pocket. The handle sticks up but the point is hidden. When I look up at Vin my heart skips. His eyes are sharp, intense. “Come with me.” he commands quietly. “No.” I reply immediately. I was waiting for this. From the moment he woke me up, the second I saw his eyes, I knew. And just as quickly as I recognized it, I knew what my answer would be. He shakes his head in disbelief. “You know I’m not coming back here. Not for you, not for anyone.” “Maybe not, but if I go with you then you definitely won’t.” “It’s not going to work, Joss.” he tells me seriously. “The Hive won’t bite. They don’t want to rock the boat with the Colonies and the pot isn’t sweet enough to convince them to try. They’ll pass and everyone here is going to either stay here forever or die in a revolt.” “Nats included.” I remind him coolly. “She’s a big girl. She knows how it really is. She can yell at me all she wants, but she knows just as well as I do that no one will come here to help.” “Especially if you don’t ask.” “What the hell do you want from me?” he whispers fiercely. “You want me to go out there and rally the troops, bring them back here riding on a tall white horse and save the day? I’m no hero. I never have been. It’s how I’ve stayed alive.” “It’s also a great way to stay alone. And if you do this, if you go and pretend we don’t exist, then I’ll pretend I never knew you. Nats will too, I’m sure. You’ll be nothing to no one and won’t that make life easier for you? So go on and go, you coward, and don’t ever look back because there’s nothing to look back on. You were never even here far as I’m concerned.” I turn to leave him standing there in the cold beside the words I wrote to Ryan, words that have gone unnoticed and feel like nothing in the night. I’m spun around roughly and pinned against Vin’s chest. His breath is coming even and hard, sharp inhales and exhales that burst against my face leaving my skin freezing in their absence. “Don’t turn your back on me.” he growls. I can see the enforcer in him now. The hard ass who lived on the outside by the skin of his teeth and grit under his knuckles. It’s something I understand, something I can respect. Something I can relate to. I lean closer, no longer being pulled but rather pushing against him until our faces almost touch. “No, don’t you turn your back on me. On us.” I whisper harshly, pushing at him aggressively. He lets me go and I stumble back from him. “I’m no hero.” he repeats. “How do you know until you’ve tried?” * * * “You’ll come back for us, Vin.” I whisper in his ear. “I know you will.” I know no such thing, but I want it to be true and I can tell he does too so I tell him that it is. I lie to us both and I hope it makes it real. Vin nods his head beside mine and buries his face in my shoulder. I do the same. We stand huddled together against the cold and the uncertainty of everything tomorrow will bring.

… The most important contribution you can make now is taking pride in your treasured home state. Because nobody else is. Study and cherish her history, even if you have to do it on your own time. I did. Don’t know what they’re teaching today, but when I was a kid, American history was the exact same every year: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, Sons of Liberty, tea party. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, we have to start somewhere— we’ll get to Florida soon enough.’…Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, Paul Revere, the North Church, ‘Redcoats are coming,’ one if by land, two if by sea, three makes a crowd, and I’m sitting in a tiny desk, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. Hello! Did we order the wrong books? Were these supposed to go to Massachusetts?…Then things showed hope, moving south now: Washington crosses the Delaware, down through original colonies, Carolinas, Georgia. Finally! Here we go! Florida’s next! Wait. What’s this? No more pages in the book. School’s out? Then I had to wait all summer, and the first day back the next grade: Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock…Know who the first modern Floridians were? Seminoles! Only unconquered group in the country! These are your peeps, the rugged stock you come from. Not genetically descended, but bound by geographical experience like a subtropical Ellis Island. Because who’s really from Florida? Not the flamingos, or even the Seminoles for that matter. They arrived when the government began rounding up tribes, but the Seminoles said, ‘Naw, we prefer waterfront,’ and the white man chased them but got freaked out in the Everglades and let ’em have slot machines…I see you glancing over at the cupcakes and ice cream, so I’ll limit my remaining remarks to distilled wisdom: “Respect your parents. And respect them even more after you find out they were wrong about a bunch of stuff. Their love and hard work got you to the point where you could realize this. “Don’t make fun of people who are different. Unless they have more money and influence. Then you must. “If someone isn’t kind to animals, ignore anything they have to say. “Your best teachers are sacrificing their comfort to ensure yours; show gratitude. Your worst are jealous of your future; rub it in. “Don’t talk to strangers, don’t play with matches, don’t eat the yellow snow, don’t pull your uncle’s finger. “Skip down the street when you’re happy. It’s one of those carefree little things we lose as we get older. If you skip as an adult, people talk, but I don’t mind. “Don’t follow the leader. “Don’t try to be different—that will make you different. “Don’t try to be popular. If you’re already popular, you’ve peaked too soon. “Always walk away from a fight. Then ambush. “Read everything. Doubt everything. Appreciate everything. “When you’re feeling down, make a silly noise. “Go fly a kite—seriously. “Always say ‘thank you,’ don’t forget to floss, put the lime in the coconut. “Each new year of school, look for the kid nobody’s talking to— and talk to him. “Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work. “Cherish freedom of religion: Protect it from religion. “Remember that a smile is your umbrella. It’s also your sixteen-in-one reversible ratchet set. “ ‘I am rubber, you are glue’ carries no weight in a knife fight. “Hang on to your dreams with everything you’ve got. Because the best life is when your dreams come true. The second-best is when they don’t but you never stop chasing them. So never let the authority jade your youthful enthusiasm. Stay excited about dinosaurs, keep looking up at the stars, become an archaeologist, classical pianist, police officer or veterinarian. And, above all else, question everything I’ve just said. Now get out there, class of 2020, and take back our state!

You can tell the story without ever going to Mount Mitchell, it’s still an entertaining story. But when you go up on top of that mountain and you see that landform, you’re like ‘Oh, this is what they’re describing.’ It’s amazing.” “Almost every prominent rock and mountain, every deep bend in the river, in the old Cherokee country has its accompanying legend,” noted the ethnographer James Mooney. “It may be a little story that can be told in a paragraph, to account for some natural feature, or it may be one chapter of a myth that has its sequel in a mountain a hundred miles away.” This phenomenon, Mooney wrote, extended well beyond the Cherokee. In the storytelling traditions of virtually every indigenous culture, stories don’t unfold abstractly, like Little Red Riding Hood skipping through unnamed woods; they take place. The stories of the Inuit, for example, always specify a real setting where the story (often, a depiction of a journey) unfolds; many stories even include details about the direction of the prevailing wind.

I should add that there’s a subtle but profound difference in how film and digital move at high speed. On linear film machines, like the KEM, you achieve ten times normal speed by reducing the amount of time that any one frame is seen by ninety percent. So a frame is on for V240 of a second, not V24 of a second. It’s very fast, but it’s still there—you can still catch a little something from every single frame. But by the nature of their design, digital systems can’t do that. They achieve ten times normal speed at the cost of suppressing ninety percent of the information. So if you ask a digital machine to go ten times faster than normal, it will do so by showing you only one frame out of every ten. It’s like skipping a rock across the surface of a lake. You are not seeing ninety percent of the film—whereas when you watch sprocketed film at high speed on a KEM or Steenbeck, you see everything. I’m always amazed at how perceptive the human eye is, even at those high speeds, at detecting tiny inflections of looks and expression and action.

Oh tell me please, how does it go, the triple jump?" She pro nounced it tripee-el She had a way of pleading for things in her Brazilian English to make you understand that they were matters simultaneously of no consequence and of life and death. You could refuse, and nothing would be changed; or you could give, and earn undying gratitude. It was a great gift, which she had won by long effort and sorrow and laughter. It was the humorous residue of cravings which had once been corrosive enough to etch her face. "Is that the hop, skip and jump?" I asked lazily from the rock where I was sitting and reading. I did not want to leave my rock. I had my left leg over the side with the foot in the sand. Every thirty seconds or so the movements of the water combined to send a wave swishing along the side of the rock, covering my leg up to the knee and cooling it. I felt the sun's heat flowing through me into the sea. "I really don't know," I said. `Why? What's fascinating you?" She had asked about the triple jump once before, I remembered, in Rio. "I don't know," she said, each word long-drawn-out and husky. "I am going to try it anyway." She pursed her mouth and did a coltish sprint along the sand finishing with both feet together. She stood for a while with the sun on her back, her face in shadow, looking again at the prints she had left. I watched her still, exploring the shape of her body. I would have expected a dancer's body to be harder, to show more muscle.

Excuse me,” I call to his retreating back. I sound like I swallowed Kermit, so I clear my throat. “Excuse me,” I call again. I run to catch up with him and tug on his backpack. He looks back over his shoulder, but then he keeps right on walking. “Wait!” I say, trying to keep up. “Damn it, would you stop?” He stops very quickly and I slam into his back. He rocks forward and I grab onto his pack to stay upright, feeling like I have two left feet. I am usually more graceful than this. My mother would kill me if she saw me right now, making a public spectacle of myself in the quad. He turns, grabs me by the shoulders and steadies me, then he bends down to look into my eyes. His are bright blue and full of questions. “Are you all right?” he asks, his voice gruff. I’ve never heard him do more than grunt in class, so hearing him make a full sentence, albeit a short one, is startling. “I’m fine,” I gasp, a little winded from chasing him. “You’re really fast.” He grins. “Sweetheart, you haven’t seen fast.” My heart skips a beat. I am in such big trouble. I don’t know why I thought I could approach a man like this, but I did, and now I don’t know how to ask for what I want. “Cat got your tongue?” he asks. A grin tips one corner of his lips. He’s pretty enough to take my breath away. His blond hair flops across his forehead and he shakes his head to swing it back from his eyes. I open my mouth to speak, but only a squeak comes out. He looks around the quad, looking behind me like he’s trying to figure out where the hell I came from. When he sees that no one is chasing me, he takes my shoulders in his hands and gives me a gentle squeeze, bending so he can stare into my eyes. “Hey,” he says softly, like I’m a stray dog he’s trying to trap. “Are you okay?” I thrust out my hand. “Madison Wentworth,” I say. “I just wanted to introduce myself.” His eyes narrow and he stares at me, but he doesn’t stick his hand out to shake mine. I let mine hang there in the air between us until it becomes so heavy with disappointment that I have to tuck it into the pocket of my jeans. “Guess not.” I sigh. “I’m very sorry for taking up your time.” “Which one of those fuckers put you up to this?” he asks. He grinds his teeth as he waits for my response. “What?” “Those frat boys you hang out with, the ones with more money than sense. Which one put you up to this?” He glares at me. “No one put me up to this,” I say. “Listen, sweetheart,” he says, his face very close to mine. I can smell the cigarette he just smoked and the coffee he must have had before it. “You don’t want to mess with a man like me.” “Okay,” I whisper. I clear my throat. “Fine. Have a nice day.

Two homeless men were asleep on picnic tables. I had become very good at not looking at unpleasant things. I could skip my eyes over any pool of vomit on the train platform, any broken junkie lurching toward the concrete, any woman who screamed at her crying baby, even the couples fighting at their tables at the restaurant, women crying into fettuccine, twirling their wedding bands - what being a fifty-one percenter had taught me was not to let any shock shake my composure. One of the homeless men, in the layers of colorless clothes, was faced away from me on his side. His pants were half down, a piece of shit-covered toilet paper sticking out of his ass crack like a surrender flag. One of his tennis shoes had fallen off and lay to the side of the table. I looked at him until I couldn’t anymore. The sun seemed pensive about setting, and instead of the usual transcendental buzz I got from a change of light, I noticed that the rats were shifting within the rocks. I’m beginning to worry, I said to the river. I checked my phone and walked back home.

[Faulkner]"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." In an attempt to remind his sons that every action had a consequence...and that terrible truth had plagued Red and his brother all through adolescence. Very street race through McKee's Rocks, every skipped class, every rock thrown into the glass of old factory buildings, every girl he ever touched--Red thought of Faulkner.

how to construct a device that could retrieve a rock after you had skipped it into the ocean.

Fugazi’s particularly dogmatic slant emphasized pragmatism, modesty, and fair play—not the first concepts to come to mind when discussing the indisputably punk rock Sex Pistols, for example. Far from complicating their lives, Fugazi’s conditions actually simplified things. If no club in a particular city could agree to Fugazi’s terms, the band would simply skip that town. Occasionally the band would pull up to a club and learn that their conditions had not been met. And they’d start packing the van back up. Sometimes the promoter would relent, sometimes not. If not, he or she would get a good, long look at the band van’s taillights. “The power of ‘No,’ man, that’s the biggest bat we’ve ever wielded,” says Picciotto. “If it makes you uncomfortable, just fuckin’ say no. It’s made life so much easier for us, man. I think bands are fragile, particularly our band—we’re super fragile, we’re control freaks—if things upset us, we can’t deliver…. That’s what it’s about—all this shit, just setting it up so we can go out and play without cares, man. It eliminates everything. It just slashes through all that crap.

H of H [voiceover]: All those years. Hitchhiking everywhere. Rock my pillow. Rain my liquor. Being told to throw myself into every kind of fire. Being given to believe I could burn away the weak parts, keep only one father (god), get rid of the other (the emotional), skip wife, skip kids, steal a Corvette, read dictionaries at night and beat the blue devils. And great acclaim being predicted for me based on my looks alone! And those being good times! So I get done with the Labours, I come home, I look in the mirror and the mirror is uninhabited. No one there.

Chase As performed by Nathan Avebury at the George and Dragon York, April 2016 I know I'm supposed to like the thrill of the chase, but - personally - I like it when the chase is over. I like the bit where no one has to go and get croissants for breakfast, or pretend they always have them in the fridge, and we just have toast, or Weetabix. I like unmatching underwear, and fuzzy armpits. I like being able to wear my old Hootie and The Blowfish T-shirt with reasonable confidence that no one is going to call a cab for me. I like the things that say: relax. We have arrived somewhere where we can both rest. Don't get me wrong: I like a bit of tension, a bit of fizz. I might not enjoy the chaise longue but that doesn't make me ready for the rocking chair. But I'll be relieved when you've seen my weird-shaped toes and that potential deal-breaker is done with. So maybe we could skip the chase, and relax?

Our thoughts are powerful. My mom’s therapist always told her that holding her thoughts and feelings in was like filling her heart with rocks. But sharing her thoughts was like watching her thoughts skip across a pond. This is one of the ways she learned to ground herself.

He was only twelve, so sex had more to do with odd pictures in his mind and an occasional curiosity about one of Miss Bernice’s daughters he favored for reasons he wasn’t quite sure of. His understanding of girls was that they were necessary, would one day be women, would be required in his life somehow and vice versa; but in the meantime, they were impediments in his daily quest to gather marbles, rocks, and stones, and send them skipping across the creek that ran behind both the yards of the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store and Miss Bernice’s house.

Jeanne continued to drive until she reached a small state park. She parked her car and walked over to a bench parallel to the lake. Jeanne stared out at the lake and thought about carving all of her ex-lovers names onto the large stones that sat in the grass and spending her entire life waiting for them to be eroded by the wind and the rain. In the park there were also children dropping medium sized rocks with both hands into a stream. They fell heavily into the water and sunk down with the sound of small giggles. The children shouted something to their mothers. Something like, “Look mom we’re skip- ping rocks!” The mothers didn’t look but they shouted something back like, “Wow good job honey!” The “wow” was drawn out long and slow, more pronounced than any of the other words in the sentence. The children seemed pleased with this response and continued to laugh and throw stones into the river. A woman sat on a bench across from Jeanne for an extended period of time, folding leaves in her hands like a nervous tick. The woman looked up from her hands and laughed. She looked back down at her hands and looked sad again. Jeanne felt the urge to ask the woman why she looked down at the leaves and felt sad. Maybe, Jeanne speculated, she felt sad for the leaves that were in pieces all around her. Maybe the woman felt sad for herself because she was sitting on a bench alone and feeling ner- vous. Perhaps the woman felt guilty because she was laughing while killing something. Jeanne watched the woman as she looked up at middle space and alternated her expression from smiling to sad. Jeanne thought about wanting to kiss the woman’s face when it looked sad. Jeanne wanted to catch her mouth right in the in-be- tween before she smiled. Jeanne wanted the kiss to be sad and slow but hopeful as children laughed and threw rocks with her ex-lovers names into the river. Jeanne sat on the bench in the park and did nothing. She could feel her heart beating inside of her left shoulder blade. Jeanne wanted to throw rocks into the river like a child and kiss. Jeanne thought, “Kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss,” but she continued to sit. She didn’t throw rocks. She didn’t kiss anyone.

I must have fallen asleep on a rock. It’s digging into my shoulder blade. I scrunch up and start to roll over, but then freeze. It’s not just a single rock. It’s a giant one. Like concrete. I go numb as I realize what this means. It can’t be…I ease open my eye, and then in an instant I’m sitting upright and looking around. And all I see are cars. And people in blue jeans. And street signs. And I smell smog and I hear radios crackling in the passing cabs. I close my eyes for at least ten seconds and then open them again, but it’s all still there. The twenty-first century. I can’t stop my face from falling. I’m back. Just when I’d realized I don’t want this at all, I’m back. My shopping bags are strewn around me. I’m wearing jeans. A T-shirt. My heels. I glance back to realize the Prada shop is still a few yards behind me, just where I’d left it. I’m sitting in the exact spot I’d fallen down. I never left at all. I stay put for a few moments as a pounding headache fades. Alex. Emily. Even Victoria. They were all make-believe. Some figment of my banged-up brain. That means the kiss…God, I made it all up! Every single thing! I want to lie back down, close my eyes, and go back. I want horrible soup and stiff corsets and lump mattresses. I’ll trade it all to see Alex again. To go to Emily’s wedding. A man trips on my foot and then has the nerve to glare at me, even though he basically kicked me in the shin. Yes, I’m definitely in the twenty-first century. I scramble to my feet and wipe the dirt off my jeans and lean over to pick up my bags. And then I notice them. My heels. My beautiful, damaged heels. I glance over my shoulder. Yes, the Prada shop is definitely still behind me. I’ve gone maybe four steps from the door. Nowhere near enough to ruin the heels like this. They’re scuffed, dented, and scratched. I gather up the rest of my bags, my grin in full-force. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t make-believe or a dream or anything. It happened. As sure as the mud on the heels, it happened. There’s even a dent where the front door of Harksbury bounced off the toe. I don’t know how or why or anything, but somehow, I was there. I danced with Alex and helped Emily. I played a piano for a duke and a countess, and I ate more exotic animals than I ever wanted to. But it happened. I don’t understand it; I only know that the last month was real, and it was the best of my life. I sling the bags over my shoulder and practically skip down the block. No matter what happens next, no matter what happens for the rest of my life, I have something no one else will ever have. An adventure to rival Indiana Jones. A crazy month that can never be replicated.

I knew it! When Reed called it a harmless joke, I knew it had to be him. But why would he do that to me?” Jeremy shrugged helplessly. “It turned out it really was just a joke. He had me tell you that so he could get your hot chocolates.” Madison’s jaw dropped. “That’s why he did it?” “He was tired of standing in that long line.” Jeremy kicked at the ground with the toe of his sneaker. “But I didn’t know that at the time. When I pushed you onto the football field, Reed nearly fell over laughing. He thought he was so clever. I wanted to kill him!” Madison shook her head in amazement. “Hot chocolate! He was willing to totally humiliate me for a couple of hot chocolates? I thought it was because I didn’t go out with him.” “That also may have had something to do with it,” Jeremy said, scratching his head. “He liked you, too.” “Too?” Madison repeated, cocking her head. Jeremy flashed an embarrassed smile. “Well, at the time, I had a major crush on you. I thought it was pretty obvious.” Madison’s heart skipped a tiny beat. Maybe all wasn’t lost after all. “You did?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “That’s why I didn’t apologize right away. I just couldn’t face you.

But of all that he saw, what gripped him the most were the light flashes in the darkened atmosphere that he had seen before—but always high, high above him. Meteors blazing through the atmosphere, shooting stars beneath him, the fireflies of space dashing blindly through cremation. Then came the moment. Deke would never forget it. He became part of a wonder that opened all space to him. Meteors flashed in greater number than he had yet seen, the spattered debris of ancient planetary formation and collisions of rock consumed by the atmosphere of Earth. Something he could not measure in size, but unquestionably large, perhaps even huge, rushed at earth with tremendous velocity. The meteor hurtled in toward his home planet, but at an angle that would send it skimming along the upper reaches of the atmosphere, almost parallel with earth’s surface below. Deke first saw the intruder when it punched deep enough into earth’s air ocean, grazing the edges of the atmosphere with a speed he could not judge, except that it was a rogue body, gravity-whipped to tremendous velocity. It tore into thin air; instantly its outer surface began to burn, its front edges blazing like a giant welding torch gone mad. It skipped along the atmosphere and gained an upward thrusting lift, like a flat rock hurled across smooth water. Deke gazed in wonder at the sight and watched the burning invader continue its journey along the atmosphere and then flash beyond. Away now from the clutches of air, still burning, it left behind an ionized trail of particles and superheated gases. Now away from Earth, it lofted high and far until it raced beyond Earth’s shadow. Sunlight flashed through the ionized trail, and the departing mass created its own record of passage, enduring long enough for Deke to watch until the last flicker, the final gleam, was gone. He felt he should not lower his gaze. His vision moved along the arrowing path of the now invisible wanderer of the solar system, and Deke stared, unblinking, as the mass of stars in his own galaxy shone down on him, an uncountable array of suns, stars he knew were smaller than his own sun, many vastly greater in size and energy, but all members of the great pin-wheeled Milky Way of which Deke and his world were one tiny member. He was

Hot chocolate! He was willing to totally humiliate me for a couple of hot chocolates? I thought it was because I didn’t go out with him.” “That also may have had something to do with it,” Jeremy said, scratching his head. “He liked you, too.” “Too?” Madison repeated, cocking her head. Jeremy flashed an embarrassed smile. “Well, at the time, I had a major crush on you. I thought it was pretty obvious.” Madison’s heart skipped a tiny beat. Maybe all wasn’t lost after all. “You did?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “That’s why I didn’t apologize right away. I just couldn’t face you.

That also may have had something to do with it,” Jeremy said, scratching his head. “He liked you, too.” “Too?” Madison repeated, cocking her head. Jeremy flashed an embarrassed smile. “Well, at the time, I had a major crush on you. I thought it was pretty obvious.” Madison’s heart skipped a tiny beat. Maybe all wasn’t lost after all. “You did?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “That’s why I didn’t apologize right away. I just couldn’t face you. And later, when people like the Stafford twins and Piper Chang turned on me and started calling me names, I figured there was no way I could get anyone to believe my side of the story. You and everyone else seemed to have made up your minds.” Madison winced. “We convicted you without a trial,” she said, repeating the words Kirk Boyd had said before. Ruby chose that moment to lick Madison in the face, which made Madison burst into giggles instead of tears. “It’s funny how things work out,” she said, wrapping her arms around the dog and squeezing her tight. “All this time we spent hating each other when we could have spent it--” “Together.” Jeremy kneeled beside the dog and looked directly at Madison.

pulled into a dark tunnel. I found myself hurtling down an almost vertical dirt path, skipping over rocks and dirt patches like Indiana Jones until I hit bottom with a thud. Six years as a private investigator and I’d never fallen down a tree before. I caught my breath, got to my feet and dusted myself off. Good thing I never dress up for work. My old jeans and boots were none the worse for wear. I was wondering how I’d get back up to the surface when I noticed the flicker of golden sconces on

Watching him, Lady Aron placed her hand on his. "Would you teach me to do that? To skip rocks-would you, Jake?

God helps us in the obstacles of life. When you turn your obstacles over to the Lord, He acts. What will He do? Sometimes He overcomes the obstacles. God is with us in the hopeless places. How hopeless the Israelites were at the Red Sea! The enemy soldiers were behind them; the wilderness was around them; the sea was in front of them. But God opened a way to escape. Sometimes God removes the obstacles—the “hills” and the “mountains.” He just makes them skip and run away like animals. He also can turn the obstacles into blessings. He “turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters” (v. 8). If God doesn’t overcome or remove your obstacle, let Him turn it into a blessing.

Dr. Pym,” Emma huffed, “what happened back there? What’s going on?” “I told you that we are here to see a man. What I did not say was that I have been searching for this individual for nearly a decade. Only recently did I finally track him to this village. You heard me asking the signora how to find his house.” “That’s it? That’s what made her drop the plate?” “Yes, it appears that he is regarded by the locals as something of a devil. Or perhaps the Devil. The signora was a bit flustered.” “Is he dangerous?” Michael asked. Then he added, “Because I’m the oldest now, and I’m responsible for Emma’s safety.” “Oh, please,” Emma groaned. “I wouldn’t say he’s dangerous,” the wizard said. “At least, not very.” They hiked on, following a narrow, twisting trail. They could hear goats bleating in the distance, the bells around their necks clanking dully in the still air. Stalks of dry grass scratched at the children’s ankles. The light was dying, and soon Michael could no longer see the town behind them. The trail ended at a badly maintained rock wall. Affixed to the wall was a piece of wood bearing a message scrawled in black paint. “What’s it say?” Emma asked. The wizard bent forward to translate. “It says, ‘Dear Moron’—oh my, what a beginning—‘you are about to enter private property. Trespassers will be shot, hanged, beaten with clubs, shot again; their eyeballs will be pecked out by crows, their livers roasted’—dear, this is disgusting, and it goes on for quite a while.…” He skipped to the bottom. “ ‘So turn around now, you blithering idiot. Sincerely, the Devil of Castel del Monte.’ ” Dr. Pym straightened up. “Not very inviting, is it? Well, come along.” And he climbed over the wall. Michael

Can you smell that black dirt over there Hank?” Hank tested the wind and nodded as Rock continued on. “Yeah. Me too. Just plowed it yesterday. You can’t smell that in the city. There are roots in that dirt. Roots that run deep and strong. I grew up in the country surrounded by dirt like that, and after I retired, well, it just felt natural to get back out into the real America, back into the heartland where real people live and breathe and can smell the rich, black dirt of the earth.

went back to her crossword puzzle - still looking for a five-letter word that meant “to believe in something without evidence”. She sat down in the old wooden rocker. She was patient; it would come to her – in time – in the Lord’s good time. She closed her eyes, and she rocked.

The trouble with multitasking. In study after study, researchers have shown that performing multiple tasks at once makes the brain less efficient. Basically, the brain doesn’t become proficient at doing multiple tasks, it simply becomes faster at skipping back and forth between them and blocking other information out.

I skip down the driveway, hurry up the road, linger on the bridge for a moment, looking down at the reflection of the sky like mercury on the dark water, the foaming white suds near the rocks. Ice glistens on tree branches, frost webs over dried grasses in a sparkling net. The evergreens, dusted with the light snow that fell last night, are like a forest of Christmas trees. For the first time, I am struck by the austere beauty of this place.

HIKER GLOSSERY AT- Appalachian Trail - The most populated and most difficult terrain of the three longest trails in the USA Aqua Blazing- Canoeing instead of hiking a section of the trail in the Shenandoahs. Bear Cables- A system to easily hang up food bags. Bear bagging- Hanging food up high in a tree. Bivy Sack- A lightweight waterproof shelter that has bad condensation Blow Down- A fallen tree or limb blocking the trail Blue Blazer- A hiker that takes short cut trails or more scenic trails that lead back to the main trail Bushwhack- To hike where there is no trail /to clear a trail with a machete. CDT- The Continental Divide Trail - The most secluded and least populated of the three longest US trails. Cowboy Camping- to sleep on the ground with no shelter Cairn- Pile of rocks to depict where the trail is located when above treeline Day Hiker- Usually a novice who is out for the day or several days. DEET- A heavy duty bug spray. Drop Box- Food or gear sent by mail. Five Fingers - Shoes with toes. Flip-Flopper- A thru-hiker who hikes one way, then skips ahead to hike the opposite direction Gators- A piece of gear worn around the ankle to keep dirt from entering shoes Giardia- Parasites that cause diarrhea from drinking unclean water.

I’m going to focus on your hands, Mr. Harrison. Hands can be complicated.” He smiled as if she’d just explained to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Christmas often fell on the twenty-fifth of December. “I like hands,” he said, taking his seat. “They can be windows to the soul too. What shall I do with these hands you intend to immortalize?” She hadn’t thought that far ahead, it being sufficient challenge to choose a single aspect of him to sketch. Fleur and Amanda came skipping back into the room, each clutching a sketch pad. “You will sketch the girls, and I will sketch you, while the girls sketch whomever they please.” The plan was brilliant; everybody had an assigned task. Amanda’s little brows drew down. “I want to watch Mr. Harrison. Fleur can sketch you, Aunt Jen. You have to sit very still, though.” “An unbroken chain of artistic indulgence,” Mr. Harrison said, accepting a sketch pad and pencil from Fleur. “Miss Fleur, please seat yourself on the hearth, though you might want a pillow to make the ordeal more comfortable.” Amanda grabbed two burgundy brocade pillows off the settee, tossed one at Fleur, and dropped the other beside Elijah’s rocker. Jenny took the second rocking chair and flipped open her sketch pad. Her subject sat with the morning sun slanting over his shoulder, one knee crossed over the other, the sketch pad on his lap. Amanda watched from where she knelt at his elbow, and Fleur… Fleur crossed one knee over the other—an unladylike pose, but effective for balancing a sketch pad—and glowered at Jenny as if to will Jenny’s image onto the page by visual imperative. “Your sister has beautiful eyebrows,” Mr. Harrison said to his audience. “They have the most graceful curve. It’s a family trait, I believe.” Amanda crouched closer. “Does that mean I have them too?” He glanced over at her, his expression utterly serious. “You do, though yours are a touch more dramatic. When you make your bows, gentlemen will write sonnets to the Carrington sisters’ eyebrows.” “Papa’s

Ned was at once reminded of the past, the time before his mother had become ill. He imagined the three of them dancing down the living room holding hands, or skipping stones down by the Hudson River on a little muddy strip of shore where cattails grew and large damp toads hid behind rocks and the days were always sunny. He knew it couldn't have been like that; he knew it must have rained and stormed, that they hadn't spent all their time dancing and skipping stones and laughing together, yet it felt as though they had. It was the time he'd been happy and hadn't known it. When he was happy now, he would remind himself he was. He would say, At this moment I'm happy, and that was different from simply being a certain way and not having to give it a name.

The mud carries Anneke. There's a moment when she feels as if she is flying and floating. She closes her eyes, lets herself be carried. Is this what the woman in El Salvador felt bobbing in the waves? Was this how she bounced against rocks weightless on the water? When did she stop caring? Was it before she was tossed into the sea? Or was it when the darkness came across Rodger's eyes a floodtide of black that swallowed his irises? Down the mud goes. The hills of Malibu are receding above her. The mud is rushing invading some houses and skipping others. Is this house the world slips away in slow motion? Anneke is spinning buffeted from one side of the stream to the other. It's almost peaceful. These women. These women, beautiful and wild, out of control. These women he loved with a ferocity he couldn't tame, a passion he didn't understand. These women who tortured and tormented him. These women who would taunt screw and die. These women he loved, hated, and destroyed. These women. All these women who haunted Western. Anneke had tried to keep them safe, she tried. What more does the world want? The mud blankets her face as black as Rodger's stare. One by one things are lost to her: sight, smell, and now sound. She can no longer hear the mud roar. It has filled her ears. She continues down in quiet.

To the south, past the rocks, in the dunes, stood the carved posts of the graveyard. Bebba lay there, it was said, and other queens. Anglisc and British, including Cwenbarh. It was ill luck to linger by the dead, so they walked-they ran, they skipped, they laughed, their dresses kilted up like they were children, bags of bread and beer bouncing, noses streaming-north, to the island.

I can’t help the cheesy grin I’m rocking. And the fact that I so easily and quickly follow his lead is alarming. I swear he could lure me into Hell, and I’d joyfully skip the whole way down.

The seventies were crazy everywhere, but crazier in Los Angeles. It was the era of freewheeling drugs and sex, the rag end of the sixties. I refer to sprees, to strange couplings and triplings, to nights that started with beer and wine and ended with cocaine and capsules, to debaucheries too various to chronicle. In a sense, we were all Robert Mitchum, smoking rope in bed with two girls while the sun was still noon high. We thought it was normal. You would walk into a house for a pool party, and there, on the cocktail table in the center of the living room, as if it were nuts or cooked shrimp, would be a platter of cocaine. We did it because we were stupid, because we did not know the danger. When I talk about my drug years, I am talking about twenty-four months in the middle of the seventies. I was in the rock and roll world, which meant I was around the stuff all the time. Of course, it was more than mere proximity. I was fun when I was high, talkative and all-encompassing. I could go forever, never be done talking. To some extent, I was really self-medicating, using the drugs to skate over issues in my own life. The fact is, money and success had come so fast, while I was away doing something else, not paying attention, that, when I finally realized where I was and just what I had, I could not understand it. There was this voice in my head, saying, Who do you think you are? What do you think you did? You are a fraud! You don’t deserve any of this! I tortured myself, and let the anxiety well up, then beat back the anxiety with the drugs, on and on, until one day, I stood up and said, “Screw it. That’s over. I’m done.” No rehab, no counseling, nothing like that. Just a moment of clarity, in which I saw myself from the outside, the mess I was making, the waste. I was slipping, not working as hard as I used to. I started leaving the office early on Fridays, then skipping Fridays altogether. Then I started leaving early on Thursdays, then arriving late on Mondays. I was letting myself go. Then one day, I just decided, It has to stop. I threw away the pills and bottles, took a cold shower, had a barbershop shave, and stepped into the cool of Sunset Boulevard, and began fresh. Maybe it had to do with my family situation. I was a father again.

My armor’s tarnished and I shot your horse—I think you can skip the dress. What do you want to hear?

At the time, many female colleagues congratulated me for withstanding Barney’s withering attitude and outing what we’d now describe as a flagrant celebrity love cheat. Today, though, the ‘great’ New Order runaround fiasco of 1986 seems howlingly naive, a joyless and ill-judged one-note harrumph both on stars who refused to Play The Game and a desire to prove Barney Sumner a bounder – hardly for cheating on his wife (who I did not know existed) but for failing to turn up to a Smash Hits interview with an arsenal of hilarious jokes. We were always scuppered, anyway, with the realities of rock ’n’ roll: to protect the youngest viewers, the majority of references to wimmin, booze ’n’ drugs were merely skipped around in a riotous twinkle of euphemism, slang and innuendo, all ‘rock ’n’ roll mouthwash’, ‘foxtrels’ and ‘mazin’ rumpo … speryoooo!’ In

So it’s up to Maya. She’s already won. I’m just the bonus round.” He grinned then, but it was a different kind of grin, a mock arrogance that made me laugh and shake my head. I looked into his eyes and saw the challenge sparkling there, and I hadn’t even decided what to do when I heard myself saying, “You’re on.” As Rafe walked over to the dangling harness, he stripped off his jacket, earning him giggles and whispers from the girls and grunts from the guys, who weren’t nearly as impressed. Rafe skipped gym whenever he could, so I’d assumed he wasn’t the athletic type. I was wrong. He wore an old T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, and his lean muscles moved under coppery skin. He had a tattoo on the inside of his forearm--a small one that looked like raven wings. When he turned around, I caught the faint edge of another tattoo on his shoulder peeking from under his shirt. He glanced over, like he’d sensed me looking. When I didn’t turn away, he grinned and mouthed something I didn’t catch, probably didn’t want to. Brendan helped Rafe into the harness. It took a while, the process punctuated by Rafe’s questions. Then he stood at the base of the rock face, saying, “You put your toes here, right? And you grab those things that stick out?” The others laughed and yelled, “Quit while you’re ahead!” Daniel relaxed and rolled his eyes at me. I rolled mine back, but not for the same reason. When we were finally in position, the others pulling away, I whispered, “Poseur.” Rafe glanced over, brows arching. “Keep calling me that and I might get insulted.” “Stop earning it and I’ll stop saying it.” I faced forward as I tested my rope and waited for Daniel to get to the top. “Are you implying that I know how to climb?” “Are you implying that I’m stupid enough to think you’d challenge me if you didn’t? Of course, you can’t be that good if you need to slow me down by pretending you don’t know what you’re doing.

Take, for instance the Efe, a group of hunter-gatherers who have lived in the rainforest of central Africa for thousands of years. Right after a mom gives birth, other women come over to her house and form a baby SWAT team, ready to respond to every whimper and cry the baby has. They hold, snuggle, rock, and even feed the newborn. As the anthropologist Mel Konner writes: “Dealing with a fussing baby is a group effort.” After a few days, the mom can return to work and leave the baby with an allomother. In the first few weeks of a new baby’s life, an infant will move from one caregiver to the next, on average, every fifteen minutes. By the time the baby is three weeks old, allomoms account for 40 percent of the newborn’s physical care. By sixteen weeks, allomoms account for a whopping 60 percent. Skip ahead two years, and the child spends more time with others than with their own mother. All these snuggles, cuddles, and moments of comfort from allomoms have lasting benefits for babies and children. These women know the little dumpling just as well as the mother. And the dumpling feels just as safe and comfortable with these alloparents as they do with mom. As a result, babies attach and bond to many adults, perhaps as many as five or six.

It is not practice in crying but practice in falling asleep under new conditions that a child needs to learn. If you are going to rock your baby to sleep in the end, you would do better to rock him at once and skip the crying altogether.

Ty, have you ever considered how lucky we are, you and I, that certain genes skipped a generation? Don't close off," she said before he could draw away. "You're so like Eli." She combed her fingers through his hair. She'd come to love the way she could tease out the reds. "Tough guy," she said as she touched her lips to his cheek. "Solid as a rock. Don't let the weak space between you and Eli cut at you.

Ones Who Love You Take, take from the ones who love you Leave, leave with the ones who don't Lie, lie with the ones who love you Oh, lay, lay with the ones who won't When lightning strikes I'll be on my bike I won't be stuck inside I will be taking flight They, they are the ones who love you We, we are the ones who don't Hang up on the ones that need you Watch out for the ones who won't When lightning strikes I'll be on my bike I won't be stuck inside I will be taking flight And when the wheels come off I'll be an astronaut But I won't be lost in space I will be skipping rocks When you live on an island Nothing ever falls in place The winters are violent And you can't ever feel your face You can't fucking feel your face When lightning strikes I'll be on my bike I won't be stuck inside I will be taking flight And when the wheels come off I'll be an astronaut I will be lost in space I'll be on Lippincott Take

People still said that “The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire,” even though the Commonwealth was starting to come apart. In spite of the obvious, it was unthinkable that the United States had a colony in Africa; well they had one, and that was where I was headed! World War II had been over for ten years and in Europe they were getting on with things and for now all was well in Africa, and with the World! Unless especially fitted out, aircraft didn’t have the range to cross the Atlantic in one jump, so after leaving Idlewild Airport in New York City, we flew halfway across the Atlantic Ocean to the Portuguese island of Santa Maria in the Azores. After refueling and stretching our legs we continued on to Lisbon. Our layovers were only for as long as it took to take care of business. There were no days built in, for me to have a leisurely, gentlemanly, civilized journey to my destination. Instead my seat was beginning to feel as hard as a rock pile. The engines continued to drone on as the Atlantic Ocean eventually gave way to the Iberian Peninsula. My view of Portugal was only what I could see from the air and what was at the airport. Again we landed for fuel in Lisbon, and then without skipping a beat, headed south across the Mediterranean to the North African desert. The beaches under us, in Morocco and the Spanish Sahara, were endless and the sand went from the barren coastal surf inland, to as far as the eye could see. With very few exceptions there was no evidence of civilization.