Sleepy Head Quotes

Deep in the meadow, under the willow a bed of grass, a soft green pillow lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes and when again they open, the sun will rise. Hear it's safe, here it's warm hear the daisies guard you from every harm hear your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true hear is the place where i love you. Deep in the meadow, hidden far away a clock of leaves, a moonbeam ray forget your woes and let your troubles lay and when again it's morning, they'll wash away. Hear it's safe, hears its' warm hear the daises guard you from every harm Hear your dreams are sweet and tomorrow bring them true hear is the place where i love you.

I love...that elevator,” she said. With a sleepy smile and a full heart, he turned his head and kissed into her soft hair. “Aw, Red. I love that elevator, too.

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

Fitz yawned, and she patted Mr. Snuggles on the head as she stood to leave. He mumbled something, the words too sleepy to be coherent. But Sophie could've sworn he'd said, "Miss you.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise. Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.

How very like you, Puck.” Ash’s voice came from a great distance, and the room started to spin. “Offer them a taste of faery wine, and act surprised when they’re consumed by it.” That struck me as hilarious, and I broke into hysterical giggles. And once I began, I couldn’t stop. I laughed until I was gasping for breath, tears streaming down my face. My feet itched and my skin crawled. I needed to move, to do something. I tried standing up, wanting to spin and dance, but the room tilted violently and I fell, still shrieking with laughter. Somebody caught me, scooping me off my feet and into their arms. I smelled frost and winter, and heard an exasperated sigh from somewhere above my head. “What are you doing, Ash?” I heard someone ask. A familiar voice, though I couldn’t think of his name, or why he sounded so suspicious. “I’m taking her back to her room.” The person above me sounded wonderfully calm and deep. I sighed and settled into his arms. “She’ll have to sleep off the effects of the fruit. We’ll likely be here another day because of your idiocy.” The other voice said something garbled and unintelligible. I was suddenly too sleepy and light-headed to care. Relaxing against the mysterious person’s chest, I fell into a heady sleep.

Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes, and when again they open, the sun will rise.

We stood for a moment, the brackish canal water teething at the stone,the last of the stars fading as the sky transformed from black to indigo. A pair of swans like large white clouds floated on the water, their heads tucked under their wings, as a gondola pulled up, a lantern on the prow, the gondolier on the stern, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

I missed her so much I wanted to die: a hard, physical longing, like a craving for air underwater. Lying awake, I tried to recall all my best memories of her—to freeze her in my mind so I wouldn’t forget her—but instead of birthdays and happy times I kept remembering things like how a few days before she was killed she’d stopped me halfway out the door to pick a thread off my school jacket. For some reason, it was one of the clearest memories I had of her: her knitted eyebrows, the precise gesture of her reaching out to me, everything. Several times too—drifting uneasily between dreaming and sleep—I sat up suddenly in bed at the sound of her voice speaking clearly in my head, remarks she might conceivably have made at some point but that I didn’t actually remember, things like Throw me an apple, would you? and I wonder if this buttons up the front or the back? and This sofa is in a terrible state of disreputableness.

In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the corner of her parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster of stars palely glowed above us between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Her legs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a little higher than I, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she was led to kiss me, her head would bend with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful, and her bare knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again; and her quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face. She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion.

Kestrel's eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasn't sure whether he expected her to to hear him. 'I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage.' There was a long pause. Then Arin's voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. 'In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes and eclipse.' Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her. 'Just before I fell asleep,' he said, 'I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun.' She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her. 'Kestrel.' She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. 'Survival isn't wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like it's meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.' Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. 'You probably plot even in your sleep.' There was a silence as long as a smile. 'Plot away, Kestrel. Survive. If I hadn't lived, no one would remember my mother, not like I do.' Kestrel could no longer deny sleep. It pulled her under. 'And I would never have met you.

If you’re gonna have your head split open, it might as well be while you’re riding a wave, dude.

He’s brought you back to us. The Farm and him. You’ve been in this sleepy haze this last year and a half—I know we all have—and I don’t think I’ve seen you so awake and alive since that awful day. When the two of you are together…” She shook her head.

swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

After writing in her journal, Sidda felt sleepy. She let her head drop down over the table and dozed off. Vivi’s

He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

What happened to the holes?’ ‘The holes?’ ‘Yeah. You said you made the buttons but were stuck because there were no holes. How is it now?’ Minjun shook his head, trying to chase away the sleepiness. He stared up at his friend, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘Easy. I changed my shirt. This time I cut the holes first before I make the buttons that fit. Now, the shirt is buttoned up nicely.

Ramoth's huge golden wedge-shaped head swiveled around as the sleepy dragon instinctively sought her Wyermate.

Hate Poem I hate you truly. Truly I do. Everything about me hates everything about you. The flick of my wrist hates you. The way I hold my pencil hates you. The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you. Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you. Look out! Fore! I hate you. The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging from under by third toenail, left foot, hates you. The history of this keychain hates you. My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases hates you. The goldfish of my genius hates you. My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors. A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious symbol of how I hate you. My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate. My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate. My pleasant “good morning”: hate. You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate. The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it. My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning to night hate you. Layers of hate, a parfait. Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate, I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one individually and at leisure. My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you, Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

Time to Rise A birdie with a yellow bill Hopped upon my window sill, Cocked his shining eye and said: "Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!

She stared at me "You have a message," she said. "On you machine." I looked over at my answering machine. Sure enough, the light was blinking. The woman really was a detective. "It's some girl," La Guerta said. "She sounds kind of sleepy and happy. You got a girlfriend, Dexter?" there was a strange hint of a challenge in her voice. "You know how it is," I said. "Women today are so forward, and when you are as handsome as I am they absolutely fling themselves at your head." Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words; as I said it I couldn't help thinking of the woman's head flung at me not so long ago. "Watch out," La Guerta said. "Sooner or later one of them will stick." I had no idea what she thought that meant, but it was a very unsettling image. "I'm sure you're right," I said. "Until then, carpe diem." "What?" "It's Latin," I said. "It means, complain in the daylight.

If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?

It takes a lifetime to learn your parents. For children, parents are larger than life. They are strong arms that carry little ones, warm laps for sleepy heads, sources of food and wisdom. It’s as if parents were born on the same day as their children, having not existed a moment before. As children inch their way into adolescence, the parent changes. He is an authority, a source of answers, and a chastising voice. Depending on the day, he may be resented, emulated, questioned, or defied. Only as an adult can a child imagine his parent as a whole person, as a husband, a brother, or a son. Only then can a child see how his parent fits into the world beyond four walls.

Trav just shook his head and grinned. “It’s my ring on your finger, Charlie. It’s our daughter asleep down the hall, and it’s me you beg for and my name you whisper.” He sighed, content and sleepy. His accent was always thicker when he was tired. “I know damn well who you belong to. And you do too.

I wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking and thinking, and always sick thoughts, and my head aches - what is the use of praying? - it's only a sin! It is strange, too, that I am not sleepy: in great, too great sorrow, after the first outbursts one is always sleepy. Men condemned to death, they say, sleep very soundly on the last night. And so it must be, it si the law of nature, otherwise their strength would not hold out... I lay down on the sofa but I did not sleep...

You’ll soon run through the whole of the seven dwarfs. You start dating and it’ll be Bashful and Happy you’re imitating. Then you start fucking the guy and you’ll turn into Sleepy. Then it’s just a matter of time before you have a fight and it’ll be Grumpy. Then the relationship will be all over and you’ll be wiser at the end of it all, just like Doc.” I shook my head at his convoluted thinking. “What about poor Sneezy?” Charlie looked at me like I was dumb. “It was an analogy, dude! Work with me here. No analogy is perfect. Just like you’re no Snow White and the poor guy you’re mooning over is no Prince Charming.

I always wondered what your type was, but I never imagined it would be a hard-core rocker!” Here we go. I had been hoping he'd be too sleepy for this conversation. “He's not my type. If I had a type it would be...nice. Not some hotheaded, egocentric male slut.” “Did you just call him a male slut?” Jay laughed. “Dang, that's, like, the worst language I've ever heard you use.” I glowered at him, feeling ashamed, and he laughed even harder. “Oh, hey, I've got a joke for you. What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?” He raised his eyebrows and I shrugged. “I don't know. What?” “A drummer!” I shook my head while he cracked up at his joke for another minute before hounding me again about Kaidan. “All right, so you talked about my CDs, you had some cultural confusion with some of his lingo, then you talked about hot dogs? That can't be everything. You looked seriously intense.” “That's because he was intense, even though we weren't really talking about anything. He made me nervous.” “You thought he was hot, didn't you?” I stared out my window at the passing trees and houses. We were almost to school. “I knew it!” He smacked the steering wheel, loving every second of my discomfort. “This is so weird. Anna Whitt has a crush.” “Fine, yes. He was hot. But it doesn't matter, because there's something about him I don't like. I can't explain it. He's...scary.” “He's not the boy next door, if that's what you mean. Just don't get the good-girl syndrome.” “What's that?” “You know. When a good girl falls for a bad boy and hopes the boy will fall in love and magically want to change his ways. But the only one who ends up changing is the girl.

And I am in the world as free and slender as a deer on the plain. I get up as soft as a breath of air, raise my sleepy flower head, my feet light, I cross fields beyond the earth, world, time, God.

But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and none less than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the Marsh of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights waiting by fifteen fords in their black pavilions, challenging all who come to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels; the glass hills, fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basilisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock." He raised his head, and the dark blue eyes were confused and sad. "And all for nothing," he said. "I cannot touch her, whatever I do. For her sake, I have become a hero — I, sleepy Lír, my father's sport and shame — but I might as well have remained the dull fool I was. My great deeds mean nothing to her.

On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!--but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle!

Saetan paused. “Can you also appreciate that, in the thirteen years she’s lived here, Jaenelle has never been concerned enough about clothes to ask for my opinion about something she was wearing. And can you appreciate that she wasn’t asking for my opinion as her Steward or her father but as a man. And I admit that, considering the way that dress fit her, my opinion of it as a father would have differed considerably from my opinion as a man.” Daemon almost smiled. “She sees you as a man, Daemon. A man, not a male friend. For the first time in her life, she’s trying to deal with her own lust. So she’s running.” “She’s not the only one trying to deal with it,” Daemon muttered, but the sleepy look had changed to sharp interest. “I am her Consort. She could just—” Saetan shook his head. “Do you really think Jaenelle would demand that from you?” “No.

Hey sleepy-head. Finally, you're awake,

Child, I believe in the ground under my feet and the sky over my head and that I get hungry before suppertime and sleepy before bed.

Frog Princess loved the lilly flowers where Green Frog lay dreaming away the hours

Despite the crushing weight of the expectations placed on her, from the theological to the self-inflicted, what I needed was the last, selfless thought in her sleepy head.

My Shadow I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow -- Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all. He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way. He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see; I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me! One morning, very early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

He was leaning over me, resting on his elbow. Sleepy smile, eyes hazy with want. His hair had fallen forward into his face, and I reached up to push it back so I could see his eyes…and, for the first time, as my hand grazed his scarred cheek, he didn’t flinch. His smile didn’t falter and he didn’t duck his head. He didn’t turn away. Instead, he stayed right there with me.

Seeing the look in his eye, I shake my head. “Uh uh. I really am sleepy. No sexy times.” He laughs. “Sure.” I cross my arms. “I’m serious. My puss pearl is clammed up for the night. My tuna pot pie is already put away in the Tupperware. This fun hatch is closed for business, Evert.

Even though she was still so tired she felt glued to the matress, the yelling made Helen's eyes open. She saw Ariadne, Cassandra, and Noel standing over her bed. Correction, they were standing over Lucas's bed and Helen was in it. Her eyes snapped open and her head whipped around to look at Lucas. He was frowning himself awake and starting to make some gravelly noise in the back of his throat. "Go argue someplace else," he groaned as he rolled over onto Helen. He tucked himself up against her, awkwardly fighting the drag of the casts on his legs as he tried to bury his face in Helen's neck. She nudged him and looked up at Noel, Ariadne, and a furious Cassandra. "I came to see how he was and then I couldn't get back to my bed," Helen tried to explain, absolutely mortified. She gasped involuntarily as one of Lucas's hands ran up the length of her thigh and latched on to the sloping dip from her hip to her waist. Then she felt him tense, as if he'd just realized that pillows weren't shaped like hourglasses. His head jerked up and he looked around, alert for a fight. "Oh, yeah," he said to Helen as he remembered. His eyes relaxed back into a sleepy daze. He smiled up at his family and stretched until he winced, then rubbed at his sore chest, no longer in a good mood. "Little privacy?" he asked. His mother, sister, and cousin all either crossed their arms or put their hands on their hips.

Mister sleepy.” Would Alice always call him Mister? he wondered. Maybe someday she would come to think of him as Papa. Corbin gently stroked her hair without opening his eyes. “Very sleepy,” he said. He allowed the briefest of moments to pass before producing an overly loud snore that set Alice to giggling. Thoroughly enjoying her reaction, he snored again. “I happen to know that you do not snore.” When had Clara entered the room? He opened his eyes on the instant. She knelt beside Edmund, very near Corbin’s head. “I was . . . just—” “Loving my children,” she finished for him. “Our children,” he whispered back. Surely she knew he thought of them as his own.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.

olemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise.   Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.

He leaned closer. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Your face is absolutely adorable when you blush.” My ears burned. Oh great, am I the color of a tomato now? “Yeah, well, I can make you blush,” I retorted. “By telling you how hot you are, and that when that little piece of black hair falls into your eyes, it’s so sexy it makes me forget my words, and...” I stopped, suddenly aware of how warm the mausoleum was. “Go on,” Caspian prodded, shaking his head so that his hair covered one green eye. I blushed again, and glanced around me, slowly backing away from him. I just needed some... space to clear my head. He followed me, stalking my every move. My blood felt like pure oxygen racing through my veins, fizzy and bubbling and making me want to float away. A hard wall at my back stopped me, but Caspian kept coming. I thought desperately of some way to change the subject. “I got you Moby-Dick,” I blurted out. He gave me a sly smile. “Mmmm, did you? How... interesting.” “And Treasure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo.” I babbled on. “I thought you might like some boy books.” He stopped an inch away from me. I felt like I was his prisoner. “Let’s go back to the sexy and hot thing,” Caspian said. “Could we add a gorgeous or mysterious in there, too?” I gulped. “Like you don’t already know you’re all of those things. You probably had girls falling all over you before.” Caspian cocked his head to one side. “True. But I always thought it was because I was the quiet new guy. And besides, there’s only one person I was ever really interested in.” “Was?” I squeaked. Then I cleared my throat and tried again. “I mean—” “Am,” Caspian corrected himself. “Technically, I guess it’s both. I was interested the first day I saw her, and I still am interested in her.” His eyes glowed in the soft candlelight around us, and every last ounce of coherent thought left me. “It’s... um... really. It’s...” My head felt like it was thickening and my body was overheating, every word dragged from somewhere in the depths of my fuzzy brain. I waved a hand in front of my face to fan myself, and finally spit out what I was trying to say. “It’s hot in here. Don’t you think? It’s really warm.” “I only feel warmth when I’m standing next to you,” Caspian said. He stepped half an inch closer. “Like right now.

By the time I headed for my room upstairs at 2 a.m., I was exhausted and supremely happy. My thoughts with a sleepy smile on my face? “I can get used to this.” It was a salve to my soul to have such mean-spiritedness turned into an amazing night for Ben, myself and all the Manos fans who attended. Little

Will he come to me, Dream Angus, Come quietly through the evening light, Come when I do not expect him, and I am sleepy, Come when I am drowsy, when I am ready for rest; Will he come to me, Dream Angus? ... Will I see the birds about his head, The birds that are his kisses? Will I believe that each of us, Even he who thinks himself unloved, May be transformed, made different By one who finds him marvellous? Will I think that? ... Will he bring me some sort of quietus, Some form of understanding; will he break my heart; Will he show me my love; will he give Me heart's contentment, the end of sorrow, Will he do that for me; will he do that? ...

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise. Here it's safe, here it's warm Here the daisies guard you from every human Here your drams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.

Akua rested her head against a rock, and did not speak until she heard the girls’ soft and sleepy breaths floating about her like tiny butterflies.

On she prattled, friendly as a parrot. But my loyalties were elsewhere. And the flavour of Pippa's kiss - bittersweet and strange - stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

The Song Of The Happy Shepherd The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head: But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good. Where are now the warring kings, Word be-mockers?—By the Rood, Where are now the watring kings? An idle word is now their glory, By the stammering schoolboy said, Reading some entangled story: The kings of the old time are dead; The wandering earth herself may be Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie. Then nowise worship dusty deeds, Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, No learning from the starry men, Who follow with the optic glass The whirling ways of stars that pass— Seek, then, for this is also sooth, No word of theirs—the cold star-bane Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, And dead is all their human truth. Go gather by the humming sea Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell. And to its lips thy story tell, And they thy comforters will be. Rewording in melodious guile Thy fretful words a little while, Till they shall singing fade in ruth And die a pearly brotherhood; For words alone are certain good: Sing, then, for this is also sooth. I must be gone: there is a grave Where daffodil and lily wave, And I would please the hapless faun, Buried under the sleepy ground, With mirthful songs before the dawn. His shouting days with mirth were crowned; And still I dream he treads the lawn, Walking ghostly in the dew, Pierced by my glad singing through, My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth: But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! For fair are poppies on the brow: Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

Kai kissed Sehun's lips one last time before letting Sehun rest his head on his arm. When Sehun caressed Kai's cheek, he realized that the boy's hand was colder than it had been just several minutes ago. Even then, he managed to smile. "Merry Christmas, Kai." 'Merry Christmas, Sehun.' he tugged Sehun close until their foreheads brushed as he watched Sehun close his sleepy eyes just before Kai closed his.

GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him— Tell him the page I did n’t write; Tell him I only said the syntax, And left the verb and the pronoun out. Tell him just how the fingers hurried, 5 Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow; And then you wished you had eyes in your pages, So you could see what moved them so. “Tell him it was n’t a practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; 10 You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him—No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, 15 And then you and I were silenter. “Tell him night finished before we finished, And the old clock kept neighing ‘day!’ And you got sleepy and begged to be ended— What could it hinder so, to say? 20 Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious, But if he ask where you are hid Until to-morrow,—happy letter! Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!

Do you ever think about it? About nothingness. I do, I think about it all the time. Because of course it’s nothingness that awaits us. Of course it is. If it weren’t why would our hearts keep pumping any longer than they had to? Why wouldn’t we all emerge into the world pure and innocent, and then before we had a chance to get in any trouble, before we had a chance to take our first oily shit, just immediately shut down our systems and head straight to the hereafter? If there were a better life after death, why bother getting fitter for survival’s sake? Why would evolution even be a thing? Why fight for something second best? If death was really awesome, in a life or death situation, our bodies wouldn’t muscle up with epinephrine and cortisol. Our brains would hit us up instead with sloppy, sleepy happy love. Hannibal Lecter would be our Mickey Mouse. No, there’s fuckall to look forward to. Our bodies understand this. The real problem is, it’s unbearable to know this. So we cope.

And then he is in bed, light-headed but not quite sleepy, staring at the dark, mercury-like gleam the chandelier makes in the shadowy room. “I’m lonely,” he says aloud, and the silence of the apartment absorbs the words like blood soaking into cotton.

Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly. The lovely, colored world is glassed over. Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand. And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell. A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again. Here a crab tears a leg from his brother. The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or little tide-pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down. Then the creeping murderer, the octopus, steals out, slowly, softly, moving like a gray mist, pretending now to be a bit of weed, now a rock, now a lump of decaying meat while its evil goat eyes watch coldly. It oozes and flows toward a feeding crab, and as it comes close its yellow eyes burn and its body turns rosy with the pulsing color of anticipation and rage. Then suddenly it runs lightly on the tips of its arms, as ferociously as a charging cat. It leaps savagely on the crab, there is a puff of black fluid, and the struggling mass is obscured in the sepia cloud while the octopus murders the crab. On the exposed rocks out of water, the barnacles bubble behind their closed doors and the limpets dry out. And down to the rocks come the black flies to eat anything they can find. The sharp smell of iodine from the algae, and the lime smell of calcareous bodies and the smell of powerful protean, smell of sperm and ova fill the air. On the exposed rocks the starfish emit semen and eggs from between their rays. The smells of life and richness, of death and digestion, of decay and birth, burden the air. And salt spray blows in from the barrier where the ocean waits for its rising-tide strength to permit it back into the Great Tide Pool again. And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Nick drank the coffee, the coffee according to Hopkins. The coffee was bitter. Nick laughed. It made a good ending to the story. His mind was starting to work. He knew he could choke it because he was tired enough. He spilled the coffee out of the pot and shook the grounds loose into the fire. He lit a cigarette and went inside the tent. He took off his shoes and trousers, sitting on the blankets, rolled the shoes up inside the trousers for a pillow and got in between the blankets. Out through the front of the tent he watched the glow of the fire when the night wind blew on it. It was a quiet night. The swamp was perfectly quiet. Nick stretched under the blanket comfortably. A mosquito hummed close to his ear. Nick sat up and lit a match. The mosquito was on the canvas, over his head. Nick moved the match quickly up to it. The mosquito made a satisfactory hiss in the flame. The match went out. Nick lay down again under the blankets. He turned on his side and shut his eyes. He was sleepy. He felt sleep coming. He curled up under the blanket and went to sleep.

Liam gets to be Sirius.” Jase shook his head. “Sirius dies.” “Lupin?” “Also dies.” “A Weasley twin?” “Liam isn’t that funny, and Fred dies.” I searched over the entire cast ofHarry Potter. “All the cool people die.” “Which is why we should stick to Star Wars and Jedi. What kind of cool team name would we get if we went with the wizards? Team Gryffindor?” “Or, you know, Order of the Phoenix.” “I think we’re more like Dumbledore’s Army,” was Talley’s sleepy reply. “Although, we’re more like Liam’s Army.

Sophie opened one sleepy eye. A chink of light had found its way through a gap in the bedroom curtains and was falling on her face. She felt her husband slide his cold body down under the duvet and raised her head. She spotted a steaming mug of tea on her beside cabinet.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise.   Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.   Rue’s eyes have fluttered shut. Her chest moves but only slightly. My throat releases the tears and they slide down my cheeks. But I have to finish the song for her.   Deep in the meadow, hidden far away A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray Forget your woes and let your troubles lay And when again it’s morning, they’ll wash away.   Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm   The final lines are barely audible.   Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.

And the flavor of Pippa’s kiss—bittersweet and strange—stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

Kyle, I was so afraid.” Cole lifted his head from the comfort of her bosom to see her face again. She smoothed back his wild, knotted hair. “It’s you. It’s you. It’s you.” A crowd in the doorway interrupted their loving revelation. Nurse Susan stormed into the room. Cole ignored them all and kissed Kyle’s sleepy lips. “I love you, Kyle. Thank you for being alive. They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Kyle sighed. “They hurt me so much when they took you, Cole. That’s the worst pain on earth. The worst.” Kyle kissed his forehead and ran her hands over his back. “I’m your shadow. I love you too.

But my loyalties were elsewhere. And the flavor of Pippa’s kiss—bittersweet and strange—stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

It takes a lifetime to know your parents. For children, parents are larger than life. They are strong arms that carry little ones, warm laps for sleepy heads, sources of food and wisdom. It's as if parents were born on the same day as their children, having not existed a moment before. As children inch their way into adolescence, the parent changes. He is an authority, a source of answers, and a chastising voice. Depending on the day, he may be resented, emulated, questioned, or defied. Only as an adult can a child imagine his parent as a whole person, as a husband, a brother, or a son. Only then can a child see how his parent fits into the world beyond four walls.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise.   Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.   My

Winter-Time" Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And shivering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress. Close by the jolly fire I sit To warm my frozen bones a bit; Or with a reindeer-sled, explore The colder countries round the door. When to go out, my nurse doth wrap Me in my comforter and cap; The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose. Black are my steps on silver sod; Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; And tree and house, and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Alex was so confused, she shook her head. The others felt their sanity slipping from their brains just by being in proximity to the caterpillar. This is going great," Conner said with a massive eye roll. "This worm is clearly insane; let's find someone who can actually help us." "Let me handle this one, kids," Mother Goose said. "He's not crazy, the hookah is just making his brain sleepy. I might understand him if I get on his level." Mother Goose walked up to the caterpillar and had a bouncy seat on the mushroom beside him. "May I?" she asked, and gestured to the hookah. The caterpillar passed it to her and Mother Goose smoked it. After a few moments, her eyes became as glossy as his and she also spoke in complete nonsense. "Who are you?" Mother Goose asked the caterpillar. "What I am," he said. "Where are you?" she said. "Here with you," the caterpillar said. "And if this were the Castle of Hearts?" Mother Goose asked. "We'd be there," he said. "But where?" she asked. "In the castle," he said. "Ah, so there would be here,: she said, and they nodded together. "Here would be what's left." The caterpillar nodded. "Am I what's left?" she asked. "You're what's right, of course." "But what's right is wrong." "And what's left is right." "I understand completely," Mother Goose said. "Thank you so much, Mr. Caterpillar." The others stared at them absolutely dumbfounded. Mother Goose hopped down from the mushroom and moseyed back to them. :The caterpillar said to go back to the fork and take a left," she said. "He did?" Alex asked. "It's all about the keywords," Mother Goose said.

The man behind the counter at the donut store had been somewhat less than courteous ever since I had prematurely tried to hypnotize him during my first month of practice. Now as I re-entered the donut store he fixed me with a chilly glare. I sauntered up to the counter, then I threw upon him my hypnotizingest glare. "You are getting sleep," I told him. "No, you are getting sleepy," he retorted, his hypnotic eyes boring into mine. The son-of-a-bitch had been studying hypnotism too! "You are a young Georage Washington, and you've been chopping down the cherry tree," I asserted, and he became the boy President. "I cannot tell a lie," he piped in a childish voice. But it didn't last, and he shook my control free. "You are Anne Boleyn," he said, and it was true! "Don't cut off my head!" I begged...

New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one...just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister? It's no surprise that some one hundred million Americans will watch the Super Bowl--that's forty million more than go to church on Christmas--suck on that, Jesus! It's also eighty-five million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in. Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don't want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they'd like it if some kids didn't have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens, "achieving the American dream" is easy for some and just a fantasy for others. That's why the NFL literally shares the wealth--TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it thirty-two ways. Because they don't want anyone to fall too far behind. That's why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call "punishing success." Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don't just mean it's incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small-market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody--but the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is $40 million; the Yankees' is $206 million. The Pirates have about as much chance as getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. So you kind of have to laugh--the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does just that. To them, the NFL is as American as hot dogs, Chevrolet, apple pie, and a second, giant helping of apple pie.

I know that. I just don’t feel it sometimes. Over there I felt like I hadn’t a care in the world. Things felt so good and it was almost as if every muscle in my body relaxed the moment I landed there. I haven’t laughed so much in years. I felt like a 23-year-old, Steph. I haven’t felt like that much lately. I know this probably sounds weird but I felt like the me that I could have been. I liked that I didn’t have to look out for somebody else while I walked down the street. I didn’t have the fifty near heart attacks per day that I usually get when Katie goes missing or puts something in her mouth that she shouldn’t. I didn’t have to dive onto the road and hold her back just in time from being hit by a car. I liked that I didn’t have to give out, correct people on their pronunciation or make threats. I liked laughing at a joke without my sleeve being tugged at and being asked to explain. I liked having adult conversations without being interrupted to cheer and applaud a silly dance or the learning of a new word. I liked that I was just me, Rosie, not mummy, thinking just about me, talking about things I liked, going places I liked to go without having to worry about nappy changes, bottle feeding or sleepy-head tantrums. Isn’t that awful?

Deep in the meadow, under the willow A bed of grass, a soft green pillow Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes And when again they open, the sun will rise. Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you. Rue’s eyes have fluttered shut. Her chest moves but only slightly. My throat releases the tears and they slide down my cheeks. But I have to finish the song for her. Deep in the meadow, hidden far away A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray Forget your woes and let your troubles lay And when again it’s morning, they’ll wash away. Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm The final lines are barely audible. Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.

There is usually a time in life when one wakes up wondering where life is leading, the future still a rushing brace of questions and ambition and opportunity. lately for Matthew, waking up feels like one thousand rhetorical questions asked without urgency, in sleepy disbelief. The one currently wedged into the head like something parasitic with spiny little fins or teeth to anchor in with is this: Am I living in a Goddam Steely Dan song?

I was now so exhausted and sleepy that I could scarcely keep awake, although it was mid-day. So I told the Indians I was tired and would lie down and go to sleep, and if they were determined to kill me to wait till I was asleep, then put their guns close to my head, so I would not suffer much, telling them I as their friend. I spread my blankets on the ground, laid down and I am sure it was no more than two minutes till I was sound asleep.

The more routine his days, the more unruly his nights. He woke after midnight, when the dormitory was dead, starting at imagined sounds—footsteps at the threshold, leather slapping the ceiling. He squinted at the darkness—nothing. Then he was up for hours, in a spell, agitated by rickety thoughts and weakened by an ebbing of the spirit. It wasn’t Spencer that undid him, or a supervisor or a new antagonist slumbering in room 2, rather it was that he’d stopped fighting. In keeping his head down, in his careful navigation so that he made it to lights-out without mishap, he fooled himself that he had prevailed. That he had outwitted Nickel because he got along and kept out of trouble. In fact he had been ruined. He was like one of those Negroes Dr. King spoke of in his letter from jail, so complacent and sleepy after years of oppression that they had adjusted to it and learned to sleep in it as their only bed.

A major defining factor was my wanting him to be part of the DC Universe. Because if someone as powerful as the Sandman was running all the dreams in the world, a natural question would be “Why haven’t we heard about him by now?” The answer I came up with was “He’s been locked away.” And that solution formed an image in my head of a naked man in a glass cell. My next question was “How long had he been trapped there?” The movie Awakenings hadn’t been made yet, but I’d read Oliver Sacks’s book a few months earlier, so I knew about the encephalitis lethargica, or “sleepy sickness,” that had swept Europe in 1916. Scientists to this day don’t understand what caused it, and I loved the idea of blaming it on the Sandman’s imprisonment, so I determined the length of his stay to be seventy-two years—ending in late 1988, when the series debuted. And so on; each plot point just seemed to naturally lead to the next one.

A military chaplain told me the following story: "'A soldier's little girl, whose father was being moved to a distant post, was sitting at the airport among her family's meager belongings. "The girl was sleepy. She leaned against the packs and duffel bags. "A lady came by, stopped, and patted her on the head. "'Poor child,' she said. 'You haven't got a home.' "The child looked up in surprise. "But we do have a home,' she said. 'We just don't have a house to put it in.

What do you and Chris even talk about?” he asks. “You have nothing in common.” “What do we talk about?” I counter. Peter laughs. “Point taken.” He pushes away from the wall and puts his head in my lap, and I go completely still. I try to make my voice sound normal as I say, “You’re in a really strange mood today.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “What kind of mood am I in?” Peter sure loves to hear about himself. Normally, I don’t mind, but today I’m not in the mood to oblige him. He already has too many people in his life telling him how great he is. “The obnoxious kind,” I say, and he laughs. “I’m sleepy.” He closes his eyes and snuggles against me. “Tell me a bedtime story, Covey.” “Don’t flirt,” I tell him. His eyes fly open. “I wasn’t!” “Yes, you were. You flirt with everyone. It’s like you can’t help yourself.” “Well, I don’t ever flirt with you.” Peter sits back up and checks his phone, and suddenly I’m wishing I didn’t say anything at all.

Her lips never left mine as she spoke. We moved together, my body between her legs. “This is so fun,” she whispered, “but I’m so sleepy. To be continued?” She kissed me for another moment, my mouth straining to stay near hers, and then she moved from beneath me, placed her head on my chest, and fell asleep instantly. We didn’t have sex. We never got naked. I never touched her bare breast, and her hands never got lower than my hips. It didn’t matter. As she slept, I whispered, “I love you, Alaska Young.

There was just enough room for the tonga to get through among the bullock-carts, rickshaws, cycles and pedestrians who thronged both the road and the pavement--which they shared with barbers plying their trade out of doors, fortune-tellers, flimsy tea-stalls, vegetable-stands, monkey-trainers, ear-cleaners, pickpockets, stray cattle, the odd sleepy policeman sauntering along in faded khaki, sweat-soaked men carrying impossible loads of copper, steel rods, glass or scrap paper on their backs as they yelled 'Look out! Look out!' in voices that somehow pierced though the din, shops of brassware and cloth (the owners attempting with shouts and gestures to entice uncertain shoppers in), the small carved stone entrance of the Tinny Tots (English Medium) School which opened out onto the courtyard of the reconverted haveli of a bankrupt aristocrat, and beggars--young and old, aggressive and meek, leprous, maimed or blinded--who would quietly invade Nabiganj as evening fell, attempting to avoid the police as they worked the queues in front of the cinema-halls. Crows cawed, small boys in rags rushed around on errands (one balancing six small dirty glasses of tea on a cheap tin tray as he weaved through the crowd) monkeys chattered in and bounded about a great shivering-leafed pipal tree and tried to raid unwary customers as they left the well-guarded fruit-stand, women shuffled along in anonymous burqas or bright saris, with or without their menfolk, a few students from the university lounging around a chaat-stand shouted at each other from a foot away either out of habit or in order to be heard, mangy dogs snapped and were kicked, skeletal cats mewed and were stoned, and flies settled everywhere: on heaps of foetid, rotting rubbish, on the uncovered sweets at the sweetseller's in whose huge curved pans of ghee sizzled delicioius jalebis, on the faces of the sari-clad but not the burqa-clad women, and on the horse's nostrils as he shook his blinkered head and tried to forge his way through Old Brahmpur in the direction of the Barsaat Mahal.

Always, always, he was holding something. He held his students' attention when they drooped, sleepy with cheap beer, sunlight, tennis. He held a dictionary in his lap. He held the Culhua Mexica in his head, the way a politician holds his constituents: he knew the provincial governors, the secretaries, the tax collectors, the high priests, and he tried to keep track of what they all wanted, so that he could read between the lines of their letters, which were full of strange formalities and equally strange abruptnesses.

Humans are free. Although we can't fly through the skies all alone, if we can think it, we can do almost anything. We can sleep when we're sleepy. We are free to start or stop anything whenever we wish. Of course, it is a bit hindered by common sense, moralities, and the rules of society. Walking nude out in the streets, stealing from the elderly, and even killing, we can do all of this as long as we throw out our morals. Which is why they drill these laws in our head when we are children. And yet, people still continue to fight, deceive, and steal from each other. And so, people suffer because they live. Even now, there are events of happiness and unhappiness going on all over the world... What can we do to make everyone happy? Of course that's impossible for me to know. If the answer to that could be found in the shallow wisdoms of a kid, wars would have stopped long ago. But I also dislike just leaving that problem up to society or the government. After all, a great person is just one who follows the popular will of the people. In this world, the essence of a frank honest human is just an idealization. I'm sure that there's nothing that can make everyone happy. Happiness is relative. And that's how people want it. Evil is also relative. Mothers can become demons when they do anything to protect their child. Yet it's usually seen as admirable. But when a person does anything for the country he loves, wars break out. Isn't it all the same thing? No matter how much a person pretends to be good and kind, he will still have negative aspects. But nobody really tries to notice that fact. Why is that? They all try to place the blame on others, and never even consider the possibility that they themselves may have played part in the problem. Just what the hell am I thinking? The world isn't going to change no matter what I think. Then what should I be doing? I don't really want to do anything. I don't want to order nor trouble anyone. That's just laziness, I guess. I don't go to school nor do I work and I've been wasting my time away since noon. Look at me, talking about the freedom of humans when I'm just some suspicious punk in this down. In conclusion, I have nothing.

There was still some time before the train opened its doors for boarding, yet passengers were hurriedly buying boxed dinners, snacks, cans of beer, and magazines at the kiosk. Some had white iPod headphones in their ears, already off in their own little worlds. Others palmed smartphones, thumbing out texts, some talking so loudly into their phones that their voices rose above the blaring PA announcements. Tsukuru spotted a young couple, seated close together on a bench, happily sharing secrets. A pair of sleepy-looking five- or six-year-old twin boys, with their mother and father dragging them along by their hands, were whisked past where Tsukuru sat. The boys clutched small game devices. Two young foreign men hefted heavy-looking backpacks, while a young woman was lugging a cello case. A woman with a stunning profile passed by. Everyone was boarding a night train, heading to a far-off destination. Tsukuru envied them. At least they had a place they needed to go to. Tsukuru Tazaki had no place he needed to go. He realized that he had never actually been to Matsumoto, or Kofu. Or Shiojiri. Not even to the much closer town of Hachioji. He had watched countless express trains for Matsumoto depart from this platform, but it had never occurred to him that there was a possibility he could board one. Until now he had never thought of it. Why is that? he wondered. Tsukuru imagined himself boarding this train and heading for Matsumoto. It wasn’t exactly impossible. And it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. He’d suddenly gotten it into his head, after all, to take off for Finland, so why not Matsumoto? What sort of town was it? he wondered. What kind of lives did people lead there? But he shook his head and erased these thoughts. Tomorrow morning it would be impossible to get back to Tokyo in time for work. He knew that much without consulting the timetable. And he was meeting Sara tomorrow night. It was a very important day for him. He couldn’t just take off for Matsumoto on a whim. He drank the rest of his now-lukewarm coffee and tossed the paper cup into a nearby garbage bin. Tsukuru Tazaki had nowhere he had to go. This was like a running theme of his life. He had no place he had to go to, no place to come back to. He never did, and he didn’t now.

I REMEMBER the day the Aleut ship came to our island. At first it seemed like a small shell afloat on the sea. Then it grew larger and was a gull with folded wings. At last in the rising sun it became what it really was—a red ship with two red sails. My brother and I had gone to the head of a canyon that winds down to a little harbor which is called Coral Cove. We had gone to gather roots that grow there in the spring. My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket. Also foolish as a cricket when he was excited. For this reason and because I wanted him to help me gather roots and not go running off, I said nothing about the shell I saw or the gull with folded wings. I went on digging in the brush with my pointed stick as though nothing at all were happening on the sea. Even when I knew for sure that the gull was a ship with two red sails. But Ramo’s eyes missed little in the world. They were black like a lizard’s and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy. This was the time when they saw the most. This was the way they looked now. They were half-closed, like those of a lizard lying on a rock about to flick out its tongue to catch a fly. “The sea is smooth,” Ramo said. “It is a flat stone without any scratches.” My brother liked to pretend that one thing was another. “The sea is not a stone without scratches,” I said. “It is water and no waves.” “To me it is a blue stone,” he said. “And far away on the edge of it is a small cloud which sits on the stone.” “Clouds do not sit on stones. On blue ones or black ones or any kind of stones.” “This one does.” “Not on the sea,” I said. “Dolphins sit there, and gulls, and cormorants, and otter, and whales too, but not clouds.” “It is a whale, maybe.” Ramo was standing on one foot and then the other, watching the ship coming, which he did not know was a ship because he had never seen one. I had never seen one either, but I knew how they looked because I had been told. “While you gaze at the sea,” I said, “I dig roots. And it is I who will eat them and you who will not.” Ramo began to punch at the earth with his stick, but as the ship came closer, its sails showing red through the morning mist, he kept watching it, acting all the time as if he were not. “Have you ever seen a red whale?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, though I never had. “Those I have seen are gray.” “You are very young and have not seen everything that swims in the world.” Ramo picked up a root and was about to drop it into the basket. Suddenly his mouth opened wide and then closed again. “A canoe!” he cried. “A great one, bigger than all of our canoes together. And red!” A canoe or a ship, it did not matter to Ramo. In the very next breath he tossed the root in the air and was gone, crashing through the brush, shouting as he went. I kept on gathering roots, but my hands trembled as I dug in the earth, for I was more excited than my brother. I knew that it was a ship there on the

should’ve been terrified, but the air, much like his persuasion-breath, only warmed me, making me relaxed and a little sleepy. He pushed me toward the doors with his snout, and I batted him with my open hand. You need a bath, he spoke in my mind. Talking animals were too much for me right now. “I’m tired,” I slurred. “Why can’t I just sleep?” He snorted and turned his head away. I knew what the Drae was saying without him voicing the words. I stank. I’d sweated in the dirt all day. Of course I stank. My stink just didn’t bother me. In fact, I felt reasonably clean compared to the dungeons, like I was an aired-out rug. Clearly, there was no reasoning with an eighteen-foot Drae. “Fine, but then I’m going to sleep.” He snorted again.

And what of that person, her most beautiful boy? He opened his eyes each morning , and the first word from his mouth was Mama. He needed to be lifted from bed, for he was so tiny and so sleepy, then dressed, fed, bathed, played with, sung to, tickled, swung high in the air, chased. He needed her to watch me, Mama, nearly every second of his waking life. Sometimes he took his soft little hand and put it on her face, moved her head to where he wanted her to look. And it was in this gesture she saw and entire impending future, one in which all things of this world revolved around this boy: when she woke and when she slept, where they went and what they bought, the very direction of his mother’s gaze. If she was not careful, he would come to know the world as a place that bent to his every whim, for she did indeed want to bend, because she loved him, but in the hardest moments- the moments in which, for instance, she held the limp body of the cat in her bloody hands- she grew resentful of this innocent little soul, whose life would be one of ease, one of knowing that he was taken care of and could have whatever her wanted, that the world was in a very real way his. She didn’t want to deny him things, to make his life harder, but already she felt this pull inside her, to make him responsible in a fundamental way, to tell him no and no and no, and, sure, she was trying to train him against what the entire world told him, was trying to say, Look, I am not all yours, I am not only here for you, but of course, ultimately, she was his, all of her.

Willow gazed up at him, her silly grin still in place. "You know wha'? You're kinda cute when you crook your eyebrows down like tha'." Rider muttered a curse, lifted her off the floor, and tossed her over his shoulder. "Juan, you and Hicks help Mrs. Brigham to her room. I'll take care of this little hellion." Willow lifted her head from where she dangled over Rider's shoulder. "See yuh later, Mrs. B." Miriam smiled and waved. "i think Mrs. B is pickled," Rider's passenger said in a loud whisper as he hauled her out the door. "No thanks to you,hellion," he growled, and smacked her bottom. "Ow!" As he carried Willow into the house, Rider was hard pressed to quell a sudden urge to laugh. In her bedroom, he unceremoniously dumped her on her bed, but when he turned to leave, her pitiful sounding voice halted his exit. "Rider,come here a min-it." "Oh,hell, I suppose you're going to be sick." Grabbing a basin off her dresser, he shoved it under her chin. "It serves you right, you know." He watched nervously as she knocked the bowl aside. "Dun...don't be mad." She held her arms out to him. "Come closer. Gimme a kiss and we'll make up. I like your kisses so-o-o-o much." This time Rider couldn't stall his grin and inadvertently leaned closer. She was on him like a duck on a June bug. With two hearty handfuls of his shirt, she yanked him down on top of her and plastered her mouth against his. Talking against his lips, the tipsy girl had the audacity to complain, "Not like this. Do it like before. You know, with your tongue." Rider squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. This isn't fair, he bemoaned silently. He tried to rise but Willow held tight, squirming her voluptuous little body against his. Sweat broke out on his forehead. If he didn't put a stop to this soon...He lifted his mouth from hers. "If I promise to kiss you with my tongue, will you let go of me and go to sleep?" "Uh-huh." Willow's eyes drooped, but the affect appeared more seductive than drunken. Lifting her shoulders slightly off the bed, he wound his arms around her and covered her mouth with his. His tongue explored hers in a long, liquid kiss, tasting of wine and desire. Rider savored its promise, wishing just this once, he could be less a gentleman. Willow wrapped one of her legs over his and shifted her hips, innocently aligning his swelling heat with hers. He started and bolted off the bed. "Holy hell! You did it again!" "What?" Her voice was sluggish and sleepy now. Disgusted with himself, Rider stomped to the door. "Sleep it off, Freckles." Outside Willow's door, Rider slumped against the wall and shook his head. Willow Vaughn was a constant surprise, and he loved the girl so bad it hurt.

I saw her when I came back... Her eyes were closed and everything. I had to stop. I just watched her. It was very relaxing. I had to keep proper still. I had to be extra quiet or I'd ruin it. I didn't want it to stop. I could see her lips move but I couldn't hear the words. Sometimes she bent forward until her head was nearly on the ground. She made everything to proper slow. It made me sleepy from just watching it. I wanted to ask her what she was praying for but I swallowed the words back down again. ...you knew it had to be something good. I just watched from behind the wall. There was nobody else around. It was the best kind of quiet... When the head-tie girl finished praying she opened her eyes and stood up. I turned aroun sharp-sharp and went back down the corridor. I tried not to make a sound. I didn't want her to see me. I didn't want her to know I was there for if it ruined it. I waited until she was gone, then I came back to life. I held my breath when I went past the bit she was praying in. I walked around the outside so I didn't tread on it.

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

Being a mother is NOT a job. Stop throwing things at me. I'm sorry but it is not. I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job. Being a mother isn't a job. It's who someone is. It's who I am. You can quit a job. I can't quit being a mother. I'm a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends tem out into the world, forever hostages. If all of that happened at work, I'd have quit fifty times already. Because there isn't enough money in the world. And my job does not pay me in the smell of baby head and the soft weight of snuggly sleepy toddler on my shoulder. Being a mother is incredibly important. To the naysayers, I growl, do not diminish it by calling it a job.

CUCHULAIN’S FIGHT WITH THE SEA A MAN came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, And said, ‘I am that swineherd whom you bid Go watch the road between the wood and tide, But now I have no need to watch it more.’ Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all raddled with the dye, Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. That swineherd stared upon her face and said, ‘No man alive, no man among the dead, Has won the gold his cars of battle bring.’ ‘But if your master comes home triumphing Why must you blench and shake from foot to crown?’ Thereon he shook the more and cast him down Upon the web-heaped floor, and cried his word: ‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird.’ ‘You dare me to my face,’ and thereupon She smote with raddled fist, and where her son Herded the cattle came with stumbling feet, And cried with angry voice, ’It is not meet To idle life away, a common herd.’ ‘I have long waited, mother, for that word: But wherefore now?’ ‘There is a man to die; You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’ ‘Whether under its daylight or its stars My father stands amid his battle-cars.’ ‘But you have grown to be the taller man.’ ‘Yet somewhere under starlight or the sun My father stands.’ ‘Aged, worn out with wars On foot, on horseback or in battle-cars.’ ‘I only ask what way my journey lies, For He who made you bitter made you wise.’ ‘The Red Branch camp in a great company Between wood’s rim and the horses of the sea. Go there, and light a camp-fire at wood’s rim; But tell your name and lineage to him Whose blade compels, and wait till they have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Among those feasting men Cuchulain dwelt, And his young sweetheart close beside him knelt, Stared on the mournful wonder of his eyes, Even as Spring upon the ancient skies, And pondered on the glory of his days; And all around the harp-string told his praise, And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings, With his own fingers touched the brazen strings. At last Cuchulain spake, ‘Some man has made His evening fire amid the leafy shade. I have often heard him singing to and fro, I have often heard the sweet sound of his bow. Seek out what man he is.’ One went and came. ‘He bade me let all know he gives his name At the sword-point, and waits till we have found Some feasting man that the same oath has bound.’ Cuchulain cried, ‘I am the only man Of all this host so bound from childhood on. After short fighting in the leafy shade, He spake to the young man, ’Is there no maid Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round, Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground, That you have come and dared me to my face?’ ‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden place,’ ‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s head That I loved once.’ Again the fighting sped, But now the war-rage in Cuchulain woke, And through that new blade’s guard the old blade broke, And pierced him. ‘Speak before your breath is done.’ ‘Cuchulain I, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’ ‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’ While day its burden on to evening bore, With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed; Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid, And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed; In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast. Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men, Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten, Spake thus: ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and brood For three days more in dreadful quietude, And then arise, and raving slay us all. Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea.’ The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days. Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.

PERCY AND PADFOOT Harry was the first to awake in his dormitory next morning. He lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the chink of sunlight falling through the gap in his four-poster’s hangings and savored the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on forever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson. Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of that beam of sunlight, it was just after daybreak. He pulled open the curtains around his bed, got up, and started to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of his fellow Gryffindors. He opened his schoolbag carefully, pulled out parchment and quill, and headed out of the dormitory for the common room. Making straight for his favorite squashy old armchair beside the now extinct fire, Harry settled himself down comfortably and unrolled his parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones, empty ingredient jars, and candy wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day was gone, as were all Hermione’s elf hats. Wondering vaguely how many elves had now been set free whether they wanted to be or not, Harry uncorked his ink bottle, dipped his quill into it,

In a physician's office in Kearny Street three men sat about a table, drinking punch and smoking. It was late in the evening, almost midnight, indeed, and there had been no lack of punch. The gravest of the three, Dr. Helberson, was the host—it was in his rooms they sat. He was about thirty years of age; the others were even younger; all were physicians. "The superstitious awe with which the living regard the dead," said Dr. Helberson, "is hereditary and incurable. One needs no more be ashamed of it than of the fact that he inherits, for example, an incapacity for mathematics, or a tendency to lie." The others laughed. "Oughtn't a man to be ashamed to lie?" asked the youngest of the three, who was in fact a medical student not yet graduated. "My dear Harper, I said nothing about that. The tendency to lie is one thing; lying is another." "But do you think," said the third man, "that this superstitious feeling, this fear of the dead, reasonless as we know it to be, is universal? I am myself not conscious of it." "Oh, but it is 'in your system' for all that," replied Helberson; "it needs only the right conditions—what Shakespeare calls the 'confederate season'—to manifest itself in some very disagreeable way that will open your eyes. Physicians and soldiers are of course more nearly free from it than others." "Physicians and soldiers!—why don't you add hangmen and headsmen? Let us have in all the assassin classes." "No, my dear Mancher; the juries will not let the public executioners acquire sufficient familiarity with death to be altogether unmoved by it." Young Harper, who had been helping himself to a fresh cigar at the sideboard, resumed his seat. "What would you consider conditions under which any man of woman born would become insupportably conscious of his share of our common weakness in this regard?" he asked, rather verbosely. "Well, I should say that if a man were locked up all night with a corpse—alone—in a dark room—of a vacant house—with no bed covers to pull over his head—and lived through it without going altogether mad, he might justly boast himself not of woman born, nor yet, like Macduff, a product of Cæsarean section." "I thought you never would finish piling up conditions," said Harper, "but I know a man who is neither a physician nor a soldier who will accept them all, for any stake you like to name." "Who is he?" "His name is Jarette—a stranger here; comes from my town in New York. I have no money to back him, but he will back himself with loads of it." "How do you know that?" "He would rather bet than eat. As for fear—I dare say he thinks it some cutaneous disorder, or possibly a particular kind of religious heresy." "What does he look like?" Helberson was evidently becoming interested. "Like Mancher, here—might be his twin brother." "I accept the challenge," said Helberson, promptly. "Awfully obliged to you for the compliment, I'm sure," drawled Mancher, who was growing sleepy. "Can't I get into this?" "Not against me," Helberson said. "I don't want your money." "All right," said Mancher; "I'll be the corpse." The others laughed. The outcome of this crazy conversation we have seen.

So, about your classes,” said Doug. “I put in the requirements already. History of Woodsmen and Pirates, Safety Rules for the Internet, and”—he cleared his throat—“Remedial Goodness 101.” “Let me guess...” said Mal. She popped a piece of candy into her mouth. “New class?” Doug nodded sheepishly. “Come on, guys,” Mal said, dropping the wrapper on the floor. “Let’s go find our dorms.” She started up a flight of stairs. Carlos, Jay, and Evie followed her. “Oh! Uh, yeah, your dorms are that way, guys,” said Doug, pointing in the opposite direction. As Mal and her friends came back down the stairs and headed in the direction he indicated, Doug hung back, counting through the dwarves again. “Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, and...” “Sneezy,” said Carlos, passing him and ascending the opposite staircase. Doug sighed and looked at the ceiling. Upstairs, Mal and Evie opened the door to their dorm room. It was light and airy and dappled in sunlight. The white canopy beds were covered with pink pillows, and flowery curtains fluttered gently in the fresh breeze from the open windows. Evie’s eyes widened with delight as Mal’s narrowed in horror. “Wow,” said Evie. “This place is so amazing—” “Gross,” said Mal. “I know, right?” said Evie, changing her tune. “Amazingly gross. Ew!” When Mal wasn’t looking, Evie couldn’t help giving a silent gasp of joy at her new crib. “I am going to need some serious sunscreen,” said Mal, arms crossed. “Yeah,” said Evie. “E,” said Mal, pointing to the windows. She closed the curtains as Evie moved to other windows in the room and did the same, plunging the dorm into darkness. “Whoa!” said Mal. “That is much better.

You grow sleepy,cara mia," Julian whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehea. "We should go to your brother's chamber. I will check him once more before we go to ground." Desari refused to open her eyes. She made a soft purring sound, completely contented to lie in his arms. "Not yet, Julian," she protested softly. "I do not want to leave this place for a little while longer." "I can feel how tired you are, my love. I can do no other than-" "Do not say it!" Deasri thumped his chest. "Just lie there and hold me. That is what I want. Men are such difficult creatures,Julian. I am beginning to realize this." He rubbed his chin on the top of her head, her hair catching in the shadow along his jaw. "Men are not difficult. They are logical and methodical." She laughed softly. "You wish it wree so. I must tell you,although I am taking a huge cance that you might become impossible to live with, tha you are an extraordinary lover." "Keep talking,lifemate. I am listening," he responded with a deep satisfaction. "Magnificent was only a starting place. Extraordinary lover is the perfect description. I see that now." Her soft laughter washed over him, as gentle as a breeze. Touching him. Just like that. She could touch him with her breath. Julian wrapped his arms around her tightly and buried his face in her ebony hair. "Why is it you always smell so good?" "Would you want me to smell like a cavewoman?" "I do not know,cara. I do not know what a cavewoman smells like." She opened her eyes at that, her long lashes fluttering in the sexy,flirty little way she had. "You'd better not want me smelling like any other, Julian, or you will find out what a real ancient woman can do when she is enraged.

He put his tray down across from Suzao, whose eyes ran up his arm like a skimming hand, counting the kill marks there. “Remember me?” Akos said. Suzao was smaller than him, now, but so broad through the shoulders it didn’t seem that way when he was sitting. His nose was spotted with freckles. He didn’t look much like Jorek, who took after his mother. Good thing, too. “The pathetic child I dragged across the Divide?” Suzao said, biting down on the tines of his fork. “And then beat to a pulp before we even made it to the transport vessels? Yeah. I remember. Now get your tray off my table.” Akos sat, folding his hands in front of him. A rush of adrenaline had given him pinhole vision, and Suzao was in the very center. “How are you feeling? A little sleepy?” he said as he slammed the vial down in front of him. The glass cracked, but the vial stayed in one piece, still wet from the sleeping potion he had poured in Suzao’s cup. Silence spread through the cafeteria, starting at their table. Suzao stared at the vial. His face got blotchier with every second. His eyes were glassy with rage. Akos leaned closer, smiling. “Your living quarters aren’t as secure as you’d probably like. What is this, the third time you’ve been drugged in the past month? Not very vigilant, are you?” Suzao lunged. Grabbed him by the throat, lifted, and slammed him hard into the table, right on top of his tray of food. Soup burned Akos through his shirt. Suzao drew his knife and held the point over Akos’s head like he was going to shove it in Akos’s eye. Akos saw spots. “I should kill you,” Suzao snarled, flecks of spit dotting his lips. “Go ahead,” he said, straining. “But maybe you should wait until you’re not about to fall over.” Sure enough, Suzao looked a little unfocused. He let go of Akos’s throat. “Fine,” he said. “Then I challenge you to the arena. Blades. To the death.” The man didn’t disappoint.

He's like a little boy again now for the first time in years because he's like let out of school, no job, the bills paid, nothing to do but gratefully amuse me, his eyes are shining -- In fact ever since he's come out of San Quentin there's been something hauntedly boyish about him as tho prison walls had taken all the adult dark tenseness out of him -- In fact every evening after supper in the cell he shared with the quiet gunman he'd bent his serious head to a daily letter or at least every-other-day letter full of philosophical and religious musings to his mistress Billie... And when you're in bed in jail after lights out and you're not sleepy there's ample time to just remember the world and indeed savor its sweetness if any (altho it's always sweet to remember it in jail tho harder in prison, as Genet shows) with the result that he'd not only come to a chastisement of his bashing bitternesses (and of course it's always good to get away from alcohol and excessive smoking for two years) (and all that regular sleep) he was just like a kid again, but as I say that haunting kidlikeness I think all ex cons seem to have when they've just come out -- In seeking to severely penalize criminals society by putting the criminals away behind safe walls actually provide them with the means of greater strength for future atrocities glorious and otherwise -- "Well I'll be damned" he keeps saying as he sees those bluffs and cliffs and hanging vines and dead trees, "you mean to tell me you ben alone here for three weeks, why I wouldn't dare that... must be awful at night ... looka that old mule down there... man, dig the redwood country way back in... reminds me of old Colorady b'god when I used to steal a car every day and drive out to hills like this with a fresh little high school sumptin" -- "Yum Yum, " says Dave Wain emphatically turning that big goofy look to us from his driving wheel with his big mad feverish shining eyes full of yumyum and yabyum too --

Marlboro Man and I walked together to our vehicles--symbolically parked side by side in the hotel lot under a cluster of redbud trees. Sleepiness had definitely set in; my head fell on his shoulder as we walked. His ample arms gripped my waist reassuringly. And the second we reached my silver Camry, the temperature began to rise. “I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he said, backing me against the door of my car, his lips moving toward my neck. Every nerve receptor in my body simultaneously fired as his strong hands gripped the small of my back; my hands pulled him closer and closer. We kissed and kissed some more in the hotel parking lot, flirting dangerously with taking it a step--or five--further. Out-of-control prairie fires were breaking out inside my body; even my knees felt hot. I couldn’t believe this man, this Adonis who held me so completely and passionately in his arms, was actually mine. That in a mere twenty-four hours, I’d have him all to myself. It’s too good to be true, I thought as my right leg wrapped around his left and my fingers squeezed his chiseled bicep. It was as if I’d been locked inside a chocolate shop that also sold delicious chardonnay and french fries…and played Gone With the Wind and Joan Crawford movies all day long--and had been told “Have fun.” He was going to be my own private playground for the rest of my life. I almost felt guilty, like I was taking something away from the world. It was so dark outside, I forgot where I was. I had no sense of geography or time or space, not even when he took my face in his hands and touched his forehead to mine, closing his eyes, as if to savor the powerful moment. “I love you,” he whispered as I died right there on the spot. It wasn’t convenient, my dying the night before my wedding. I didn’t know how my mom was going to explain it to the florist. But she’d have to; I was totally done for. I’d had half a glass of wine all evening but felt completely inebriated. When I finally arrived home, I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I was intoxicated--drunk on a cowboy. A cowboy who, in less than twenty-four hours, would become my husband.

Alan, as per his usual routine, got up early and peeked into my rom to check on me. What he found were his teenage stepdaughter and her childhood sweetheart curled up in the same bed, sound asleep and draped all over each other. He hissed my name, alarmed: "Jenna!" "Wha-?" I sat straight up, immediately aware of what was happening and how it all looked. I clambered over Cameron, who was just coming to consciousness, and followed Alan into the kitchen. "It's nothing, I swear," I said in a whisper. If Mom wasn't up yet, I wanted to keep it that way. Alan shook his head. "It looks bad." He glanced toward my bedroom. "Was that Ethan? Tell him to come out here. I want to talk to him." "Um, it's not Ethan. It's Cameron." He put his hands to his head. "Jenna. Jenna." "I know. Is Mom awake?" "Not yet." I kept my voice low. "Can we talk by the fish tank?" He led, I followed. "He came to my window in the night," I explained. "He needed to talk. I let him in. It was me. It was my idea. It was all...nothing happened." "This isn't my area," Alan said, looking at the fish. "Your mom is supposed to do the tough stuff. We have a policy of laissez-faire when it comes to me and...this kind of thing." "Exactly. So," I said hopefully, "go make the coffee and we'll pretend nothing every happened." Cameron came into the room, his blanket wrapped around him. His hair was sticking up in the back, and his long eyelashes hooded sleepy eyes. "I just needed to talk to someone," he said to Alan. "Guess we fell asleep." "Uh-huh." Alan cast an anxious glance toward his and mom's bedroom and said, "You couldn't talk in the kitchen?" "We didn't think about it," I said. "That's how innocent it was, see?" Alan stared at us, still shaking his head. "Look, Cameron, just get out of here before Jenna's mom sees you. Okay?" He nodded. "I'll go get my boots." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Alan." When Cameron shut my bedroom door, Alan said, "Jenna. This is the kind of situation that's very, very awkward, to say the least. If your mom were to find out, I would be in scalding hot water." "She won't. Thank you thank you thank you." "Now. I need my coffee." He shuffled off to the kitchen, ankles cracking. "I'm too old for this." Back in my room, I watched Cameron get ready to go, thinking about everything we'd talked about and what it meant. "Where do you live?" I asked. "I'll take you home." "I share a studio apartment with three other guys. It's a dump," he said, lacing up his boots. "How come you were sleeping in my car yesterday?" "Sometimes I don't want to be there." He pulled on his jacket. "I'll go straight to school, shower in the locker room. See you later." He started to open the window. "Wait," I said. "You can use the front door, you know. Just be quiet." "Okay." He paused on his way out of my room, looing back once to say, "Thanks.

I landed a bit too fast and stumbled in my unlaced sneakers before slamming face first into Darius’s chest as he lurched forward to catch me. “Sorry,” I laughed as I looked up at him with a grin and he fell still as he helped me steady myself. “What?” I asked, trying to blink the sleep out of my eyes. “You’ve never smiled at me like that before,” he said in a rough voice, reaching out to brush some tangled strands of black hair out of my face. “Shut up, I smile at you all the time,” I replied as heat touched my cheeks and I tried to run my fingers through my knotty hair. Really should have taken a minute to brush it dumbass. Let’s hope he assumes it’s from flying. “Not like that you don’t,” Darius countered, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth too as his gaze ran over me. “You look…cute.” “I don’t know what you mean. And I don’t do cute.” Darius snorted at me. “You look like you got dressed in the dark…” “Gee thanks, any more observations, Sherlock?” I asked, rolling my eyes at him but I was still grinning so there wasn’t much bite with my snark. “Well… You’re not wearing any makeup.” “I…woke up late, so-” “I like it,” he said, his smile growing as he looked me over. “You look all sleepy and innocent. I could almost imagine you just woke up in my bed.” I was definitely goddamn blushing now and thanks to my lack of bronzer he was clearly well aware of it. The sky was darkening overhead already as we lingered, but I fought the stars for just another moment. “If I’d spent the night in your bed, there wouldn’t have been anything innocent about it,” I taunted to get him back onto safer, less mortifying topics of conversation. Like sex. “As much as I ache for the feeling of your body against mine – and I really fucking do – I think if I was allowed a single cheat against this curse that keeps us apart, I’d just want to be able hold you in my arms,” he replied. “Just to wake up with you there, knowing you were safe.” My heart pounded at his words, but a crash of thunder from the heavens stopped me from replying. I offered him a frustrated smile and turned away from him as I began my run. Darius followed behind me, far enough back to allow the clouds to scatter again and I tried not to dwell on the disappointment that lingered in me as I upped my pace. Did I just shoot over here at the speed of light without brushing my hair or putting any makeup on rather than risk missing out on our run? I shook my head at myself as I tried to figure out what was going on here. I’d been purposefully ignoring this question up until now, but I seriously needed to consider what I was doing. Running with him every morning, messaging him every night. Exchanging little looks whenever we ended up in the same place and thinking about him way too often. This felt a hell of a lot like the start of something instead of the end of it, but that wasn’t possible. Even if he wanted it. Even if I wanted it. We couldn’t have it. The damn stars wouldn’t allow it. My mind twisted around and around as we ran on and I cursed the stars out with everything I had. But why was I doing that? Hadn’t I made my mind up about this? Hadn’t I already made the only decision I could? Darius might have been showing me more of himself now, he might have stopped hurting me and be trying to change but had he done enough to make up for all the pain he’d caused me? When I really thought about it, I still wasn’t sure. But I was sure that he made me smile when he messaged me, that I looked for him whenever I arrived in a room, that he seemed to be trying to do everything he could to set things right. And that I fantasised about him more than I had about any man in all my life. Even Tom Hardy. Even. Tom. Hardy. Fuck it. We ran around Aqua Lake, circling the shore and heading on into The Wailing Wood. Darius kept pace behind me in silence like always, but I decided to drop back. (Tory)