Smoke Alarm Quotes

I can sleep like a champion. I once slept through a smoke alarm going off. For three hours. In my bedroom.

The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire.

The fifth problem is that when a new man tells you he likes you too much already, it doesn’t sound like a promise. It sounds like a smoke alarm, warning you to get out fast— If you hurry, you might miss the worst of it.

Luckily the smoke raised the alarm and everyone fled we don’t think any innocent people died. Although when the cavern collapsed two guards were crushed.” “Yeah I would have been disappointed too.” Jason grinned, his grin was soon wiped off his face when he noticed Dexter’s face change and disapproval of his joke.

...well, we're all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three an.m. on a high ceiling and there's no one to hit it with a broom but you.

...‘you’ve got him. These women who want perfume and designer handbags for Christmas – it’s when you’re unwrapping anti-freeze and smoke alarms that you know. When a man starts worrying about something happening to you, that’s when he really loves you.

Everyone loves my cooking. Even the smoke alarm cheers me on. -Kitchen sign

So, first, I want you to know that everybody experiences some level of anxiety. It's a normal human response to stress. It's like your body's smoke alarm. If there's a fire, you want to know so you can put it out or call 9-1-1, right?” I shrug. “I guess. But it feels like my alarm is going off all the time.” Doctor Ann nods. “Some people's systems are more sensitive than others'. For you, maybe all it takes is burning a piece of toast, and your alarm thinks the house is on fire.

What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite. That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him. "Well, I'm partial to whores." Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or... or... "Whor... whores...?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke. He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly. "I... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard.

Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off.

I'm not saying my wife's a bad cook, but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer.

The smoke alarm went off in the hallway upstairs, either to let us know the battery had just died or because the house was on fire. We finished our lunch in silence.

I ripped the pages out of the book. I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first was last. When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky. And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that the plane was about to come out of. Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston. He would've taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor. He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop. Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left. He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor. He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've rung backward, he would've dreamt backward. Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day. He would've walked backward to my room, whistling 'I Am the Walrus' backward. He would've gotten into bed with me. We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes. I'd have said 'Nothing' backward. He'd have said 'Yeah, buddy?' backward. I'd have said 'Dad?' backward, which would have sounded the same as 'Dad' forward. He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from 'I love you' to 'Once upon a time.' We would have been safe.

Chapter 13 Everyone loves my cooking. Even the smoke alarm cheers me on. -Kitchen sign Blake

She’d burned so many meals Jake thought the smoke alarm was the dinner bell.

Her favorite was the magnet on the fridge that said, “Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off.

Smoke alarms are compulsory in homes because they contain cameras and microphones wirelessly linked to the government. With poison gas capsules too, in case the government doesn’t like what you’re saying or doing.

People who have never canoed a wild river, or who have done so only with a guide in the stern, are apt to assume that novelty, plus healthful exercise, account for the value of the trip. I thought so too, until I met the two college boys on the Flambeau. Supper dishes washed, we sat on the bank watching a buck dunking for water plants on the far shore. Soon the buck raised his head, cocked his ears upstream, and then bounded for cover. Around the bend now came the cause of his alarm: two boys in a canoe. Spying us, they edged in to pass the time of day. ‘What time is it?’ was their first question. They explained that their watches had run down, and for the first time in their lives there was no clock, whistle, or radio to set watches by. For two days they had lived by ‘sun-time,’ and were getting a thrill out of it. No servant brought them meals: they got their meat out of the river, or went without. No traffic cop whistled them off the hidden rock in the next rapids. No friendly roof kept them dry when they misguessed whether or not to pitch the tent. No guide showed them which camping spots offered a nightlong breeze, and which a nightlong misery of mosquitoes; which firewood made clean coals, and which only smoke. Before our young adventurers pushed off downstream, we learned that both were slated for the Army upon the conclusion of their trip. Now the motif was clear. This trip was their first and last taste of freedom, an interlude between two regimentations: the campus and the barracks. The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills not only because of their novelty, but because they represented complete freedom to make mistakes. The wilderness gave them their first taste of those rewards and penalties for wise and foolish acts which every woodsman faces daily, but against which civilization has built a thousand buffers. These boys were ‘on their own’ in this particular sense. Perhaps every youth needs an occasional wilderness trip, in order to learn the meaning of this particular freedom.

Like Trush, Sheriff Gorunov is a born Alpha, a handsome, fire-breathing dragon of a man who smokes with an alarming vigor: cigarette clamped between his canines at the point where filter and tobacco meet, the act of inhaling fully integrated into breath and speech such that there is no discernible pause, only billowing smoke that seems to be a natural by-product of a voice that booms even in the confines of his quiet kitchen.

Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit.

They're arguing for giving homework and tests to all young children, or separating them into winners and losers, because these tykes need to get used to such things -- as if exposure itself will inoculate them against the negative effects they would otherwise experience later. If we were interested in helping children to anticipate and deal with unpleasant experiences, it might make sense to discuss the details with them and perhaps guide them through role-playing exercises. But why would we subject kids to those experiences? After all, to teach children how to handle a fire emergency, we talk to them about the dangers of smoke inhalation and advise them where to go when the alarm sounds. We don't actually set them on fire. But the key point is this: From a developmental perspective, BGUTI [Better-Get-Used-To-It worldview] is flat-out wrong. People don't get better at coping with unhappiness because they were because they were deliberately made unhappy when they were young On the contrary, what best prepares children to deal with the challenges of the real world is to experience success and joy, to feel supported and respected, to receive loving guidance and unconditional care and the chance to have some say about what happens to them.

Flavor factories churn out chemical desire. We spray, squirt, and inject hundreds of millions of pounds of those chemicals on food every year, and then we find ourselves surprised and alarmed that people keep eating. We have become so talented at soaking our food in fakeness that the leading cause of preventable death - smoking - bears a troubling resemblance to the second leading cause of preventable death - obesity.

Thomas had no concept of time as he went through the Changing. It started much like his first memory of the Box—dark and cold. But this time he had no sensation of anything touching his feet or body. He floated in emptiness, stared into a void of black. He saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing. It was as if someone had stolen his five senses, leaving him in a vacuum. Time stretched on. And on. Fear turned into curiosity, which turned into boredom. Finally, after an interminable wait, things began to change. A distant wind picked up, unfelt but heard. Then a swirling mist of whiteness appeared far in the distance—a spinning tornado of smoke that formed into a long funnel, stretching out until he could see neither the top nor the bottom of the white whirlwind. He felt the gales then, sucking into the cyclone so that it blew past him from behind, ripping at his clothes and hair like they were shredded flags caught in a storm. The tower of thick mist began to move toward him—or he was moving toward it, he couldn’t tell—increasing its speed at an alarming rate. Where seconds before he’d been able to see the distinct form of the funnel, he now could see only a flat expanse of white. And then it consumed him; he felt his mind taken by the mist, felt memories flood into his thoughts. Everything else turned into pain.

Every inch of space was used. As the road narrowed, signs receded upwards and changed to the vertical. Businesses simply soared from ground level and hung out vaster, more fascinatingly illuminated shingles than competitors. We were still in a traffic tangle, but now the road curved. Shops crowded the pavements and became homelier. Vegetables, spices, grocery produce in boxes or hanging from shop lintels, meats adangle - as always, my ultimate ghastliness - and here and there among the crowds the alarming spectacle of an armed Sikh, shotgun aslant, casually sitting at a bank entrance. And markets everywhere. To the right, cramped streets sloped down to the harbor. To the left, as we meandered along the tramlines through sudden dense markets of hawkers' barrows, the streets turned abruptly into flights of steps careering upwards into a bluish mist of domestic smoke, clouds of washing on poles, and climbing. Hong Kong had the knack of building where others wouldn't dare.

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land into new dust that rising like a marvelous pollen will be fertile even as the first woman whispering imagination to the trees around her made for righteous fruit from such deliberate defense of life as no other still will claim inferior to any other safety in the world The whispers too they intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit now aroused they carousing in ferocious affirmation of all peaceable and loving amplitude sound a certainly unbounded heat from a baptismal smoke where yes there will be fire And the babies cease alarm as mothers raising arms and heart high as the stars so far unseen nevertheless hurl into the universe a moving force irreversible as light years traveling to the open eye And who will join this standing up and the ones who stood without sweet company will sing and sing back into the mountains and if necessary even under the sea we are the ones we have been waiting for

When Straight Women Flirt …With Me She sits on my lesbian lap both of us too much wine arm around my shoulder hair carelessly tossed from her face her full weight light upon me sweet sweat rising in the noisy night her laugh laps up the smoke her lean close her breathing flirts with mine small confessions of girlhood slumber parties spill out and into my ear long unspoken memories of pairing up with other girls to practice kissing she tosses excitement of kitten innocence in my face roller skate caresses first tastes of delicious shudder first caress and innocence innocence innocence only in a sense implication of guilt guilt guilt the unsaid in her sentence she tosses excitement her breathing breathless breathing breath breast breasts breasts breasts oh flirt with my around my shoulder lean close close close both of us taste too much too much to touch ankles thighs fingers ribs eyes ears toes her arm my shoulder my shoulder her arm alarm disarm dare me dare me dare me no harm my shoulder her arm my shoulder hold her fold her I never told her my small confession: I don’t practice kissing

Solitary Swedish Houses" A mix-max of black spruce and smoking moonbeams. Here’s the croft lying low and not a sign of life. Till the morning dew murmurs and an old man opens – with a shaky hand – his window and lets out an owl. Further off, the new building stands steaming with the laundry butterfly fluttering at the corner in the middle of a dying wood where the mouldering reads through spectacles of sap the proceedings of the bark-drillers. Summer with flaxen-haired rain or one solitary thunder-cloud above a barking dog. The seed is kicking inside the earth. Agitated voices, faces fly in the telephone wires on stunted rapid wings across the moorland miles. The house on an island in the river brooding on its stony foundations. Perpetual smoke – they’re burning the forest’s secret papers. The rain wheels in the sky. The light coils in the river. Houses on the slope supervise the waterfall’s white oxen. Autumn with a gang of starlings holding dawn in check. The people move stiffly in the lamplight’s theatre. Let them feel without alarm the camouflaged wings and God’s energy coiled up in the dark.

I’ve often wondered what she was on that year, and if she’d been slipping me any of it. Twenty-four times we slept through the alarm, got up sometime past noon, and abandoned the thought of school altogether. I’d eat cereal and read or watch television all day. My mother would smoke cigarettes, talk on the phone, hide from the housekeeper, take a bottle of wine with her into the master bathroom, and draw a bubble bath and read Danielle Steel or Better Homes & Gardens. My father slept on the sofa in the den that year. I remember his thick glasses perched on the oak end table, their greasy lenses magnifying the dark grain of the wood.

Sometimes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are presented as a hunting expeditions (“As British close in on Basra, Iraqis scurry away”; “Terror hunt snares twenty-five”; and “Net closes around Bin Laden”) with enemy bases as animal nests (“Pakistanis give up on lair of Osama”; “Terror nest in Fallujah is attacked”) from which the prey must be driven out (“Why Bin Laden is so difficult to smoke out”; “America’s new dilemma: how to smoke Bin Laden out from caves”). We need to trap the animal (“Trap may net Taliban chief”; “FBI terror sting nets mosque leaders”) and lock it in a cage (“Even locked in a cage, Saddam poses serious danger”). Sometimes the enemy is a ravening predator (“Chained beast—shackled Saddam dragged to court”), or a monster (“The terrorism monster”; “Of monsters and Muslims”), while at other times he is a pesky rodent (“Americans cleared out rat’s nest in Afghanistan”; “Hussein’s rat hole”), a venomous snake (“The viper awaits”; “Former Arab power is ‘poisonous snake’”), an insect (“Iraqi forces find ‘hornet’s nest’ in Fallujah”; “Operation desert pest”; “Terrorists, like rats and cockroaches, skulk in the dark”), or even a disease organism (“Al Qaeda mutating like a virus”; “Only Muslim leaders can remove spreading cancer of Islamic terrorism”). In any case, they reproduce at an alarming rate (“Iraq breeding suicide killers”; “Continent a breeding ground for radical Islam”).

Max fumbled for the prostitute’s genitals, alarmed at his own instant arousal, and without thinking, stepped into the shadowed doorway. A shiver of shock and pure, unambiguous desire flooded through his arse and legs as he clasped two swinging testicles and a hardening penis. The creature before him, both woman and man, looked up into his face, offering a challenging flash of gold, the lower lip pierced. Max’s hat slipped back and wedged between his head and the wall as he sucked the dark mouth and smooth cheeks. The prostitute flicked the un-smoked cigarette into the narrow channel of water, unbuttoned the client’s trousers with three swift tugs, then rubbed the engorged pink tip of his sex up to a groaning climax, as rapid as it was intense. Max’s mind clung to the last sane thought he had. I should walk on now.

The fire started inside a barn. It was tiny at first, a glowing dot, some wisps of white smoke. But then flames reached up. They grabbed hold of a pile of hay. Crackle! Pop! And then, Boom! Towers of flame shot up, higher, higher, punching through the roof, reaching for the sky. Voices screamed out. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Alarm bells clanged. Firefighters readied their horses and raced their pumpers through the streets. But it was too late. The flames blasted a shower of fiery sparks into the windy sky. Like a swarm of flaming wasps, they flew through the air, starting fires wherever they landed. Shops and homes erupted in flames. Warehouses exploded. Mansions burned. Crowds of panicked people fled their houses and rushed through the streets and along the wooden sidewalks. They screamed and pushed and knocked one another down, desperate to get away from the choking smoke and broiling flames. But there was no escape. The winds blew harder. Flames shot hundreds of feet in the air, spreading across miles and miles. And in the middle of it all was eleven-year-old Oscar Starling. Oscar had never felt so terrified, not even two years ago, when a killer blizzard hit his family’s Minnesota farm. He was trapped inside a burning house, fighting for his life. He’d made it down the stairs, desperate to escape. And then, Crash! A ball of fire and cinders crashed through the window, and the house exploded in flames. And suddenly, Oscar was in the fire’s ferocious grip. The flames clawed at him, seared him, threw him to the ground. Smoke gushed up his nose and into his mouth. But the worst was the blistering heat, the feeling of being roasted alive. Was this the end? Oscar had never wanted to come to this city. And now he was sure he was going to die here.

In 1970, psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley created an experiment in which they would drop pencils or coins. Sometimes they would be in a group, sometimes with one other person. They did this six thousand times. The results? They got help 20 percent of the time in a group, 40 percent of the time with one other person. They decided to up the stakes, and in their next experiment they had someone fill out a questionnaire. After a few minutes, smoke would start to fill the room, billowing in from a wall vent. They ran two versions of the experiment. In one, the person was alone; in the other, two other people were also filling out the questionnaire. When alone, people took about five seconds to get up and freak out. Within groups people took an average of 20 seconds to notice. When alone, the subject would go inspect the smoke and then leave the room to tell the experimenter he or she thought something was wrong. When in a group, people just sat there looking at one another until the smoke was so thick they couldn’t see the questionnaire. Only three people in eight runs of the group experiment left the room, and they took an average of six minutes to get up. The findings suggest the fear of embarrassment plays into group dynamics. You see the smoke, but you don’t want to look like a fool, so you glance over at the other person to see what they are doing. The other person is thinking the same thing. Neither of you react, so neither of you becomes alarmed. The third person sees two people acting like everything is OK, so that third person is even less likely to freak out. Everyone is influencing every other person’s perception of reality thanks to another behavior called the illusion of transparency. You tend to think other people can tell what you are thinking and feeling just by looking at you. You think the other people can tell you are really worried about the smoke, but they can’t. They think the same thing. No one freaks out. This leads to pluralistic ignorance—a situation where everyone is thinking the same thing but believes he or she is the only person who thinks it. After the smoke-filled room experiment, all the participants reported they were freaking out on the inside, but since no one else seemed alarmed, they assumed it must just be their own anxiety.

One of my colleagues in Duke, Ralph Keeney, noted that America's top killer isn't cancer or heart disease, nor is it smoking or obesity. It's our inability to make smart choices and overcome our own self-destructive behaviours. Ralph estimates that about half of us will make a lifestyle decision that will ultimately lead us to an early grave. And as if this were not bad enough, it seems that the rate at which we make these deadly decisions is increasing at an alarming pace. I suspect that over the next few decades, real improvements in life expectancy and quality are less likely to be driven by medical technology than by improved decision making. Since focusing on long-term benefits is not our natural tendency, we need to more carefully examine the cases in which we repeatedly fail, and try to come up with some remedies for these situations. For an overweight movie loved, the key might be to enjoy watching a film while walking on the treadmill. The trick is to find the right behavioural antidote for each problem. By pairing something that we love with something that we dislike but that is good for us, we might be able to harness desire with outcome - and thus overcome some of the problems with self-control we face every day.

Now that I know how birth works-now that I've been talked through labor by that quiet-voiced woman-I feel I've finally been told what my task is. It's simple-so simple I'm amazed I didn't know it before. One morning I am going to wake up, and before I sleep again, I will have to tick off a long list of contractions, one by one. And when I get to the last one, I will have my girl. Each one of these will be a job in itself-a minute-long experience that would alarm anyone suddenly struck by it, without warning-but I know the one fact that makes it easy: there is nothing awry. Everything is as it should be. Unlike some pains, these don't signal something going wrong but something going right. This is what I did not realize the first time, when I prayed wildly for these pains to stop. I didn't know then that these pains were actually the answer, and that their every alternative was much, much worse. Now I know what they are, and what they're for, I greet each one with calm cheer: 60 seconds to breathe through, as limp as a sleeping child, so that there is nowhere for this wash of sensation to snag-no tensed muscle it can get caught on. I am a clear glass of water, leaf-smoke blown sideways in the wind; empty space, for a moon to sail through.

Brain imaging studies suggest that a couple brain areas in particular are involved in cognitive control: the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (lateral PFC). We’ll be referring to these together as the “cognitive control regions” of the brain. There is still some debate about the precise role played by each of these regions, but one plausible characterization is that the ACC is a kind of smoke detector, and the lateral PFC is the fire response team. Like a smoke detector, the ACC is in constant monitoring mode, waiting to detect a whiff of danger, such as an instance of cognitive conflict. In the case of the Stroop task, we’ve got two automatic processes that are in conflict: the identification of a typeface or color versus the automatic processing of a simple word (assuming you’re literate and it’s your native language). This conflict alerts the ACC, which then sends out an alarm to the lateral PFC to come deal with the situation. The lateral PFC is responsible for many higher cognitive functions, such as the integration of conscious and unconscious knowledge, working memory (the small spotlight of consciousness that allows us to focus on explicit information), and conscious planning. Most relevantly, when it comes to the case of the Stroop task, the lateral PFC also exerts control over other areas of the brain by strengthening the activation of task-relevant networks at the expense of other networks. By weakening certain neural pathways, the lateral PFC essentially tells them to stop doing what they are doing, which is the neural equivalent of fire-retarding foam. In the Stroop task presented above,

Tomo did not join them. Kami saw that he had taken one of his violent fancies to Ash, the way he had taken to lemonade, Mr. Stearn’s bulldog, and his favorite toy race car that had burned with everything else in their house. He walked happily alongside Ash, holding on to his hand, and clearly wished for nothing more. Ash seemed alarmed to have been so firmly taken possession of by an eight-year-old. He and Tomo fell back a little, until they were walking with Jared and Kami. “I am so sad about my underwear,” Kami announced, and Ash looked as if he regretted all of his life decisions. “Not in front of the little boy!” he said reproachfully. “Anyway, you were saying that you would borrow clothes from Holly and Angela.” “I’m the third tallest in my class,” Tomo informed him, with the air of one out to impress. “And I know all about underwear.” “You heard the man,” said Kami. “Besides which, no. I cannot possibly borrow underclothes from Holly and Angela. Bras especially.” “I know,” said Jared. “Oh, you do, do you?” Kami inquired. “And how do you know, may I ask?” There was a slight flush along the lines of Jared’s cheekbones. “Observation.” It was probably sad that this cheered Kami up, but Jared usually seemed so wary about her body, the physical fact of it, that the simple knowledge that he had been looking did please her. She leaned back infinitesimally closer into the warm line of his arm around her shoulders, the warm line of his body against her side. “Kami, would you maybe stop mentioning your unmentionables,” Ash said, spoiling the moment. “I shall not,” Kami told him. “It’s a serious problem. I am, and I mean this absolutely literally, in need of support.” I’d suspect you of going funny in the head from smoke inhalation, said Ash, but you always talk like this.

I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster. The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters of their own lives, their own streets, and their own bodies. I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. “Keep my name out your mouth,” they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other. I felt the fear in the visits to my Nana’s home in Philadelphia. You never knew her. I barely knew her, but what I remember is her hard manner, her rough voice. And I knew that my father’s father was dead and that my uncle Oscar was dead and that my uncle David was dead and that each of these instances was unnatural. And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It was said that these lost girls were sweet as honey and would not hurt a fly. It was said that these lost boys had just received a GED and had begun to turn their lives around. And now they were gone, and their legacy was a great fear. Have they told you this story? When your grandmother was sixteen years old a young man knocked on her door. The young man was your Nana Jo’s boyfriend. No one else was home. Ma allowed this young man to sit and wait until your Nana Jo returned. But your great-grandmother got there first. She asked the young man to leave. Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body. Ma never forgot. I remember her clutching my small hand tightly as we crossed the street. She would tell me that if I ever let go and were killed by an onrushing car, she would beat me back to life. When I was six, Ma and Dad took me to a local park. I slipped from their gaze and found a playground. Your grandparents spent anxious minutes looking for me. When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done—he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. What I know is that fathers who slammed their teenage boys for sass would then release them to streets where their boys employed, and were subject to, the same justice. And I knew mothers who belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from drug dealers twice their age. We, the children, employed our darkest humor to cope. We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything—cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge.

I'm in sore straits, Jeeves.' 'I am sorry to hear that, sir.' 'You'll be sorrier when I explain further. Have you ever seen a garrison besieged by howling savages, with their ammunition down to the last box of cartridges, the water supply giving our and the United States Marines nowhere in sight?' 'Not to my recollection, sir.' 'Well, my position is roughly that of such a garrison, except that compared with me they're sitting pretty. Compared with me they haven't a thing to worry about.' 'You fill me with alarm, sir.' 'I bet I do, and I haven't even started yet. I will begin by saying that Miss Cook, to whom I'm engaged, is a lady for whom I have the utmost esteem and respect, but on certain matters we do not... what's the expression?' 'See eye to eye, sir?' 'That's right. And unfortunately those matters are the what-d'you-call-it of my whole policy. What is it that policies have?' 'I think the word for which you are groping, sir, may possibly be cornerstone.' 'Thank you, Jeeves. She disapproves of a variety of things which are the cornerstone of my policy. Marriage with her must inevitably mean that I shall have to cast them from my life, for she has a will of iron and will have no difficulty in making her husband jump through hoops and snap sugar off his nose. You get what I mean?' 'I do, sir. A very colourful image.' 'Cocktails, for instance, will be barred. She says they are bad for the liver. Have you noticed, by the way, how frightfully lax everything's getting now? In Queen Victoria's day a girl would never have dreamed of mentioning livers in mixed company.' 'Very true, sir. Tempora mutanter, nos et mutamur in illis.' 'That, however, is not the worst.' 'You horrify me, sir.' 'At a pinch I could do without cocktails. It would be agony, but we Woosters can rough it. But she says I must give up smoking.' 'This was indeed the most unkindest cut of all, sir.' 'Give up smoking, Jeeves!' 'Yes, sir. You will notice that I am shuddering.

Engine room fire alarm’?” Rusty said. There was a moment of confusion before it kicked in. “ENGINE ROOM FIRE ALARM?” * * * “What the hell is that sound?” Harvey Tharpe said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the cabin door. Being on this yacht was better than being on the lifeboat but not much. They were packed in like sardines. There was food but being woken up in the middle of the night by a blaring “Squeee! Squeee! ” was not his idea of fun. The former businessman had been “robust” before being cast adrift on a lifeboat in a zombie apocalypse. He still had his height and some solidity. So he was more than a bit surprised when the short, blonde skipper of the boat, wearing not much more than a camisole and panties smashed him out of the way like an NFL linebacker on her way aft. “MOVE PEOPLE!” the boat captain shouted, continuing to hammer her way through the crowd of refugees. * * * “Fuck a freaking duck,” Sophia said, opening the door to the engine compartment. The smoke wasn’t so bad she needed a respirator but it was bad. And they were dead in the water. All the power except the shrieking alarm was out. She threw the main battery disconnect, then picked up one of the industrial fire extinguishers and played it over the exterior of the main breakers which were the source of the fire. “Skipper?” Paula said, picking another one up. “We need to get it open before we use them all up,” Sophia said, putting her hand on the extinguisher. “Get Rusty to get all the passengers up, out and on the sundeck.” She slid one hand into a rubber glove and popped open the main breaker panel. The whole thing was smoldering so she played the rest of the fire extinguisher over it until it was cold. A tick checker showed that the whole thing was electrically cold as well. Now if only the batteries hadn’t discharged their whole load into the panel and killed themselves as well. “What can I do, Skipper?” Patrick said groggily. The “engineer” was wearing not much more than the skipper. “Get a hand-held,” Sophia said. “See if there’s a sub in range. Tell them we had a major electrical fire. Fire is under control. No power at this time. May be repairable but we may need assistance. Don’t at this time but may. Got it? Do not call mayday or PON-PON. Do not.” “Got it, Skipper,” Patrick said. “And get these people the HELL OUT OF MY ENGINE COMPARTENT!

The temple was in a field of graves suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared and said: A melancholy autumn wind Blows through the world; the pampas grass waves As we drift to the moor, Drift to the sea. What can be done With the mind of a man That should be clear But though he is dressed up in a monk's robe, Just lets life pass him by? Such deep musings Made me uneasy, I could not sleep. Towards dawn I dozed off... I found myself surrounded by a group of skeletons, acting as they had when they were still alive. One skeleton came over to me and said: Memories Flee and Are no more. All are empty dreams Devoid of meaning. Violate the reality of things And babble about 'God' and 'the Buddha' And you will never find the true Way. Still breathing, You feel animated, So a corpse in a field Seems to be something Apart from you. If chunks of rock Can serve as a memento To the dead A better headstone Would be a simple tea-mortar. Humans are indeed frightful things. A single moon Bright and clear In an unclouded sky; Yet we still stumble In the world's darkness. This world Is but A fleeting dream So why be alarmed At its evanescence? The vagaries of life, Though painful, Teach us Not to cling To this floating world. Why do people Lavish decoration On this set of bones, Destined to disappear Without a trace? The original body Must return to Its original place. Do not search For what cannot be found. No one really knows The nature of birth Nor the true dwelling place. We return to the source And turn to dust. Many paths lead from The foot of the mountain, But at the peak We all gaze at the Single bright moon. If at the end of our journey There is no final Resting place, Then we need not fear Losing our Way. No beginning. No end. Our mind Is born and dies; The emptiness of emptiness! Relax, And the mind Runs wild; Control the world And you can cast it aside. Rain, hail, snow, and ice: All are different But when they fall They become to same water As the valley stream. The ways of proclaiming The Mind all vary, But the same heavenly truth Can be seen In each and every one. Cover your path With fallen pine needles So no one will be able To locate your True dwelling place. How vain, The endless funderals at the Cremation grounds of Mount Toribe! Don't the mourner realize That they will be next? 'Life is fleeeting!' We think at the sight Of smoke drifting from Mount Toribe, But when will we realize That we are in the same boat? All is in vain! This morning, A healthy friend; This evening, A wisp of cremation smoke. What a pity! Evening smoke from Mount Toribe Blown violently To and fro By the wind. When burned We become ashes, and earth when buried. Is it only our sins That remain behind? All the sins Committed In the Three Worlds Will fade away Together with me.

I stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. He reached around us and shoved the door closed, spinning around and facing us toward the kitchen. “I was trying to make you breakfast.” It took a moment for his words and their meaning to sink in. I stared dumbfounded across the room and past the island. There was smoke billowing up from the stove and the window above the sink was wide open. Bowls and spoons littered the island and there was a carton of eggs sitting out. He was trying to cook. He was really bad at it. I started to laugh. The kind of laugh that shook my shoulders and bubbled up hysterically. My heart rate was still out of control, and I took in a few breaths between laughs to try and calm it down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him because the fire alarm was still going off. I had no doubt half the neighborhood was now awake from the sound. He didn’t bother to put me down, instead hauling me along with him, where he finally set me down, dragged a chair over near the alarm, and climbed up to remove the battery. The noise cut off and the kitchen fell silent. “Well, shit,” he said, staring at the battery in his hand. A giggle escaped me. “Does this always happen when you cook?” He shrugged. “The only time I ever cook is when it’s my turn at the station.” His forehead creased and a thoughtful look came over his face. “The guys are never around when it’s my night to cook. Now I know why.” He snagged a towel off the counter and began waving away the rest of the lingering smoke. I clicked on the vent fan above the stove. There was a pan with half a melted spatula, something that may or may not have once been eggs, and a muffin tin with half-burned, half-raw muffins (how was that even possible?). “Well, this looks…” My words faltered, trying to come up with something positive to say. “Completely inedible?” he finished. I grinned. “You did all this for me?” “I figured after a week of hospital food, you might like something good. Apparently you aren’t going to find that here.” I had the urge to hug him. I kept my feet planted where they were. “Thank you. No one’s ever ruined a pan for me before.” He grinned. “I have cereal. Even I can’t mess that up.” I watched as he pulled down a bowl and poured me some, adding milk. He looked so cute when he handed me the bowl that I lifted the spoon and took a bite. “Best cereal I ever had.” “Damn straight.” I carried it over to the counter and sat down. “After we eat, would you mind taking me to my car? I hope it’s still drivable.” “What about the keys?” “I have a security deposit box at the bank. I keep my spare there in case I ever need them.” “Pretty smart.” “I have a few good ideas now and then.” “Contrary to the way it looks, I do too.” “Thank you for trying to make me breakfast. And for the cereal.” He walked over to the stove and picked up the ruined pan. “You died with honor,” he said, giving it a mock salute. And then he threw the entire thing into the trashcan. I laughed. “You could have washed it, you know.” He made a face. “No. Then I might be tempted to use it again.

batteries in the smoke alarms, and since he “just happened

Every day in the United States about 130 people die of overdoses. Which is to say that every month you have the equivalent of a 9/11 happening. And when you consider the attention, alarm, public effort, mobilization of resources, nationwide determination that were evoked by 9/11, you have to wonder... why isn't a tragedy that 10 times as great, every year, why does that not elicit the same reaction, the same concern, the same sense of unity, the same determination to get to the bottom of it, the same desire to end it? Well, that's of course only a small part of the addiction story, because many more people die of alcoholism and cigarette-smoking, which are also addictions, which immediately raises an interesting question: why is it that the far more lethal addictions are actually respectable, advertised and superbowled, whereas other substances that are no more dangerous and, in the long term, medically not as harmful, they are illegal, and why are jails full of people who got addicted to the "wrong substance"? Now these are interesting questions and the answers are not to be found in conjecture or prejudice, you have to really examine them.

Pray your words, old man.” The priest licked his lips and glanced fearfully at the crowd of savages around them. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of black robes against pallid flesh, but Loretta thought he was losing color at an alarming rate. Indeed, he looked as if he might faint. “Say the God words, old man!” Hunter snarled again. “Don’t you dare bully him,” Loretta hissed. “He’s a man of God, Hunter! You don’t roar at a man of God.” “It’s qu-quite all right, child, quite all right.” The priest, his face dripping sweat, made haste to open his Bible. “Merciful Father,” he muttered, clearly praying for deliverance. With a strangled cough, he began leafing through pages, turning slightly so the light from the fire was thrown across the small print. “I beg your forgiveness. I don’t usually need to use the book--” He coughed again and waved away smoke. “For some reason, the words have fled my mind. Ah, yes, here we are.” Infuriated, Loretta jerked her arm from Hunter’s grasp. “Father, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I assure you.” Hunter reclaimed her arm in a biting grip that made her swing around to face him. Bending his head, he whispered, “Blue Eyes, you test my temper. I will blow hard at you like the wind.” “Blow, then!” She tried to twist her arm free. “You’re hurting me.” “I will beat you. Then you will know a hurt. Now be silent!” Loretta’s eyes flared to a fiery blue. “I’m not going to marry you. Beat me senseless! Go ahead.” Hunter sent her a look that would have scared her to death a month ago. “Loh-rhett-ah, you will be silent and let him say the God words.” “He can say the God words until snowballs melt in--” She broke off and blushed. “I’m the one who has to say the words, Hunter, and I won’t. Do you understand?” “My dear child,” the priest inserted, “it’s not often one of these”--he threw a meaningful glance at Hunter--“gentlemen offers to make an honorable woman of a captive. Wouldn’t it be wise to accept?” “I’m in no need of matrimony, Father. I still have my honor.

When the alarm rang at the Cedar Cove firehouse, Mack and his fellow firefighters jumped into action. The address was relayed as he leaped onto the fire truck, and the familiarity of it struck him immediately, although he didn’t have time to think about it. Not until the truck, lights flashing and sirens blaring, turned onto Eagle Crest Avenue did he realize the house belonged to Ben and Charlotte Rhodes. Mack had visited there often, taking his daughter, Noelle, to see her grandparents. The smoke billowing out of the house came from the back, where the kitchen was located

HOW the ADDICTION STARTS • ALARM BELLS • THAT EMPTY FEELING • ONE CIGARETTE LEADS TO ANOTHER • RE-PROGRAMMING YOUR BRAIN • THE KEY TO ESCAPE

The Book of the Grotesque The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the bed so that it would be on a level with the window. Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer’s room and sat down to talk of building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars lying about and the carpenter smoked. For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed and then they talked of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville prison and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever the carpenter got upon that subject he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white mustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips and the mustache bobbed up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous. The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten and later the carpenter did it in his own way and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help himself with a chair when he went to bed at night. In his bed the writer rolled over on his side and lay quite still. For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay and his body was old and not of much use any more, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn’t a youth, it was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the writer, was thinking about. The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long fife, a great many notions in his head. He had once been quite handsome and a number of women had been in love with him. And then, of course, he had known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was different from the way in which you and I know people. At least that is what the writer thought and the thought pleased him. Why quarrel with an old man concerning his thoughts? In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. He imagined the young indescribable thing within himself was driving a long procession of figures before his eyes. You see the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had ever known had become grotesques. The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her grotesqueness. When she passed he made a noise like a small dog whimpering. Had you come into the room you might have supposed the old man had unpleasant dreams or perhaps indigestion. For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed and began to write. Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his mind and he wanted to describe it.

Before stopping, even if it was just for a smoke, we would do a dog-leg: walk past the point where we were going to rest, then double-back and hide where we could see our incoming tracks. Anyone tracking us would follow the spoor past our position and the sentry would raise the alarm. This tactic saved many lives.

For twelve minutes George White Rogers sat calmly by the main transmitter, waiting for an official order to summon outside help. Rogers had been sound asleep in his bunk when the fire alarm sounded. George Alagna had had to shake him quite hard to wake him. The two men dressed quickly and joined Maki in the radio room. Rogers tuned to the main six-hundred-meter distress frequency, and threw the switch into a position which would ensure that the transmitter would produce a very broad interfering path. Evidence of fire was quite apparent from the radio shack. As far as the radio operators could tell, it seemed to be just below and forward on the port side, by the writing room. The radio room was filling with smoke. When Rogers went to the door he could see the reflection of the flames and hear shouting and confused commands.

Eventually, he felt an overwhelming urge to meld his voice with the notes, and he began to play his ballad for the wind. Jack sang his verses, his fingers strumming with confidence. He sang to the southern wind with its promise of strength in battle. He sang to the western wind with its promise of healing. He sang to the northern wind with its promise of vindication. The notes rose and fell, undulating like the hills far beneath him. But while the wind carried his music and his voice, the folk of the air didn’t answer. What if they refuse to come? Jack wondered, with a pulse of worry. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Adaira rose to her feet. The wind seemed to be waiting for her to move. To stand and meet it. She stood planted on the rock as Jack continued to play, shielded by Orenna’s essence. Twice, he had played for the spirits and had nearly forgotten he was a man, that he was not a part of them. But this time he held firmly to himself as he watched the folk answer. The southern wind manifested first. They arrived with a sigh and formed themselves from the gust, individualizing into men and women with hair like fire—red and amber with a trace of blue. Great feathered wings bloomed from their backs like those of a bird, and each beat of their pinions emitted a wash of warmth and longing. Jack could taste the nostalgia they offered; he drank it like a bittersweet wine, like the memories of a summer long ago. The east wind was the next to arrive. They manifested in a flurry of leaves, their hair like molten gold. Their wings were fashioned like those of a bat, long and pronged and the shade of dusk. They carried the fragrance of rain in their wings. The west wind spun themselves out of whispers, with hair the shade of midnight, long and jeweled with stars. Their wings were like those of a moth, patterned with moons, beating softly and evoking both beauty and dread as Jack beheld them. The air shimmered at their edges like a dream, as if they might melt at any moment, and their skin smelled of smoke and cloves as they hovered in place, unable to depart as Jack’s music captivated them. Half of the spirits watched him, entranced by his ballad. But half of them watched Adaira, their eyes wide and brimming with light. “It’s her,” some of them whispered. Jack missed a note. He quickly regained his place, pushing his concern aside. It felt like his nails were creating sparks on the brass strings. He sang the verse for the northern wind again. The sky darkened. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the north reluctantly answered Jack’s summoning. The air plunged cold and bitter as the strongest of the winds manifested from wisps of clouds and stinging gales. It answered the music, fragmenting into men and women with flaxen hair, dressed in leather and links of silver webs. Their wings were translucent and veined, reminiscent of a dragonfly’s, boasting every color found beneath the sun. They came reluctantly, defiantly. Their eyes bore into him like needles. Jack was alarmed by their reaction to him. Some of them hissed through their sharp teeth, while others cowered as if awaiting a death blow. His ballad came to its end, and the absence of his voice and music sharpened the terror of the moment. Adaira continued to stand before an audience of manifested spirits, and Jack was stunned by the sight of them. To know that they had rushed alongside him as he walked the east. That he had felt their fingers in his hair, felt them kiss his mouth and steal words from his lips, carrying his voice in their hands. And his music had just summoned them. His voice and song now held them captive, beholden to him. He studied the horde. Some of the spirits looked amused, others shocked. Some were afraid, and some were angry.

•​No smoking after 7 p.m.—People who smoke a few hours before bedtime struggle to fall asleep because nicotine disrupts their natural sleep–wake cycle, and withdrawal symptoms set in before the morning alarm clock goes off, often leaving them feeling even more restless and agitated.

I was on the phone to a friend in Sydney when I heard a loud shrieking sound. It was the fire alarm in his apartment. All over the city, in offices and homes, these alarms had started to sound. This was because there was so much smoke in the air travelling in from the wildfires that the smoke alarms believed each individual building was on fire. This meant that one by one, many people in Sydney turned off their smoke alarms, and they sat in the silence and smoke. ...[Bruno Giussani] said to be that they were turning off the warning systems in our homes that are designed to protect us, because the bigger warning systems that are meant to protect us all - our society's ability to focus on what scientists are telling us, and act on what they sat - are not working.

Brandy takes notice of me, too, barking just as the right side of the banner falls from where it hangs, sweeping a party plate full of runny eggs with it to the floor. It’s a fucking circus and everything I never thought I wanted but glimpse in those chaotic seconds. Sean begins to wave a broom at the fire alarm as Cecelia’s expression falls, shoulders slumping in disappointment as she darts her eyes from the smoking cake to the burnt bacon, to Brandy, and back to me, lip quivering. So, this is adoration.

Anger, if not allowed to fester and grow out of proportion, is healthy, like a smoke alarm that if heeded can prevent all sorts of damage.

I was putting out a lot of fires then, and because with him there was no smoke, no flame, no alarms, I wasn’t paying attention.

A pair of waiters brought a feast to the hotel room and arranged it in the sitting area. They unfolded the hot cart into a table, draped it in white linen, and brought out silver-domed plates. By the time the wine was poured and all the dishes were uncovered, I was trembling with hunger. Luke, however, became fractious after I changed his diaper, and he howled every time I tried to set him down. Holding him against one shoulder, I contemplated the steaming grilled steak in front of me and wondered how I was going to manage with only one hand. “Let me,” Jack murmured, and came to my side of the table. He cut the steak into small, neat bites with such adroitness that I gave him a look of mock-alarm. “You certainly know how to handle a knife.” “I hunt whenever I get the chance.” Finishing the task, Jack set down the utensils and tucked a napkin into the neckline of my shirt. His knuckles brushed my skin, eliciting a shiver. “I can field-dress a deer in fifteen minutes,” he told me. “That’s impressive. Disgusting, but impressive.” He gave me an unrepentant grin as he returned to his side of the table. “If it makes you feel better, I eat anything I catch or kill.” “Thanks, but that doesn’t make me feel better in the least. Oh, I’m aware that meat doesn’t magically appear all nicely packaged in foam and cellophane at the grocery store. But I have to stay several steps removed from the process. I don’t think I could eat meat if I had to hunt the animal and . . .” “Skin and gut it?” “Yes. Let’s not talk about that right now.” I took a bite of the steak. Either it was the long period of deprivation, or the quality of the beef, or the skill of the chef . . . but that succulent, lightly smoked, melting-hot steak was the best thing I had ever tasted. I closed my eyes for a moment, my tonsils quivering. He laughed quietly at my expression. “Admit it, Ella. It’s not so bad being a carnivore.” I reached for a chunk of bread and dabbed it in soft yellow butter. “I’m not a carnivore, I’m an opportunistic omnivore.” -Jack & Ella

In the European countries, the newly rich industrialists stood in opposition to the old money of the royal families. Columbia University sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven described how these European industrialists and royal families competed for the workers’ allegiance. This gave the workers more leverage to gain concessions, such as better workplace conditions and national health care. Piven and Cloward noted the marked difference between European and American labor history. When the industrialists rose up in the U.S. after the 1860s Civil War, there was no aristocracy standing in opposition to them. As workers in the factories tried to organize for better wages and conditions, the industrialists initially used violence against them, but soon employed more sophisticated strategies.21 The opium-trafficking families ramped up their importation of drugs by the end of the 1800s. Companies marketed much of the imported opium and its first derivative, morphine, in medicines. But at least a quarter of imported opium was intended for smoking. By 1900 over 1% of the U.S. population was addicted to opium. Addiction to opium, particularly heroin, rose “at alarming rates” in 1903, in parallel with a rise of worker activism.

As scientists linked smoking to cancer, the tobacco industry was under particularly pointed attack, which might have heightened Powell’s alarmism. As a director at Philip Morris from 1964 until he joined the Supreme Court, Powell was an unabashed defender of tobacco, signing off on a series of annual reports lashing out at critics. The company’s 1967 annual report, for instance, declared, “We deplore the lack of objectivity in so important a controversy…Unfortunately the positive benefits of smoking which are so widely acknowledged are largely ignored by many reports linking cigarettes and health, and little attention is paid to the scientific reports which are favorable to smoking.” Powell took umbrage at the refusal by the Federal Communications Commission to grant the tobacco companies “equal time” to respond to their critics on television and argued that the companies’ First Amendment rights were being infringed.

Highlights of the Brunel featured the likes of Mr. Iraci, our landlord, coming around and being greeted by myself, stark naked, painting cartoons on my bedroom wall to liven the place up a bit; or Eddie showing another pretty girl his technique for marinating venison in a washing-up bowl full of Bordeaux wine. Our housekeeping kitty of funds would miraculously evaporate due to Hugo’s endless dinner parties for just him and up to ten different girls that he had been chatting up all week. Stan developed a nice technique for cooking sausages by leaving them on the grill until the hundred decibel smoke alarm went off, indicating they were ready. (On one occasion, Stan’s sausage-cooking technique actually brought the fire brigade round, all suited and booted, hoses at the ready. They looked quite surprised to see all of us wandering down in our dressing gowns, asking if the sausages were ready, while they stood in the hall primed for action, smoke alarm still blaring. Happy days.) I also fondly remember Mr. Iraci coming round another time, just after I had decided to build a homemade swimming pool in the ten-foot-by-ten-foot “garden” area out the back. I had improvised a tarpaulin and a few kitchen chairs and had filled it optimistically with water. It held for about twenty minutes…in fact just about until Mr. Iraci showed up to collect his rent. Then it burst its banks, filling most of the ground floor with three inches of water, and soaking Mr. Iraci in the process. Truly the man was a saint.

Liss squinted, searching frantically for Angie and Beth and Bradley. She couldn't spot them anywhere. Her chest rose and fell in time with her agitated breathing. What if they were still inside? What if they were trapped? Struggling for calm, Liss told herself that they must have escaped. Angie was scrupulous about changing her smoke-alarm batteries. She and her kids would have had plenty of time to get out. Heck, Angie was probably the one who'd alerted the fire department. But where was she? Where were Beth and Bradley?

The good news was that the newspaper he had ordered was right at his door as promised. The bad news was that he had forgotten to buy milk for his breakfast. So he dumped the cereal back into the box, swept the overflow into the sink, and put second best, a bagel, into the toaster while he read the paper. He was barely past the first page when the toaster started to smoke. He pushed up the handle; the bagel stayed down. Smoke continued to curl toward the ceiling, setting off the fire alarm. Swearing broadly, he silenced it by knocking it down with the handle of the mop that had come in so handy the night before.

Natural selection creates systems, like the brain, that are biased to minimize the costlier error. This built-in bias to avoid evolutionarily expensive errors is known as the smoke detector principle. Evolutionary psychologists Martie Haselton and Randy Nesse believe that natural selection engineered human judgment and decision making to be biased according to the same principle. Like a good smoke detector, our brain is rigged to sound the alarm even when there is no fire, forcing us to tolerate the inconvenience of false alarms to avoid potentially lethal misses. Because our evolutionary tendencies steer us toward avoiding costly errors, our decisions will result in more small errors. But we are disposed to produce little errors so that we avoid big mistakes.

All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit.

I opened up my copy of the Code of Conduct and turned to Section 11, Rule 3: “Students shall not tamper with smoke or fire alarms under any circumstances.” Then I took Leo’s pen and drew a line right through it. That felt pretty good too. One rule down and… well, all the rest to go.

Get away from me!” I snarled as I spun circles of flames in the dark air, batting the whip away from me and almost setting the retiarius net aflame. “Stay back or burn, you jackals!” One girl screamed in alarm as my torch set her tunic hem smoldering, and she quickly fell back, slapping at the cloth. The firebrands flared and flamed in my hands, trailing smoke and embers in the dimachaerus patterns I’d practiced, as my attackers backed off. When I lunged straight at the girl with the whip, she turned and ran, melting back into the night, the other girls following close on her heels. I shouted after them to come back and face me. In truth, I was just as glad they were gone. My arms and legs throbbed as I let the torches drop to my sides. I squeezed my eyes shut to clear the afterglare of fire blindness. When I opened them again and lifted my head to the cool night breeze, I saw a figure, cloaked and hooded, standing on the balcony above the courtyard, watching me. The Lanista. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was her. I could feel her gaze on me, sharp and appraising. I straightened up, standing as tall as I could, and met her gaze. She stood there for a long moment. Then she turned without a word and disappeared into the darkness.

When they’d filled the peppers and they were laid out in nice, neat, bacon-wrapped lines, she slid them into the oven. Then they went into the sitting room. David sat down next to Leah on the settee. “Now, we can’t fall asleep, waiting for them to finish cooking,” he said. Famous. Last. Words. They chatted for a moment about how melted cheese was probably the best invention on the planet, but it descended into quiet as their lids dropped and she wondered why she couldn’t think of anything more insightful to say. It had felt like only seconds that she rested her eyes, but Leah and David jumped to a start, the fire alarm beeping in the kitchen. The both looked at each other, their eyes big with surprise. “Oh no!” he laughed. They ran into the kitchen, David throwing on one of Nan’s oven mitts and yanking the smoking, sizzling peppers out of the oven. Leah opened the windows and the back door, but it seemed to let more cold air in than smoke out. She fanned the air, while David took the peppers outside and set them on the brick walkway. As they both stood in the freezing kitchen, the smoke billowing around the ceiling, they broke into laughter. “Maybe we should’ve just had the marshmallows,” he said. Leah rolled under the duvet to view the time, the gray morning barely giving her enough light to focus. It was still early—six o’clock. She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow, the feel of the linens so familiar and comfortable that, at first, she’d almost forgotten about her troubles. This was the bed she’d slept in when she needed the security of family, and a retreat to ease her mind.

...well, we're all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three a.m. on a high ceiling and there's no one to hit it with a broom but you.

You look lovely.” Blushing, I smoothed hands down my suit. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s not very traditional.” Handing me a bouquet of fake white roses, she attempted to set me straight. “Honey, you should see half the people who come in here to get married. My bet is that most of them end up divorced within a few months. You are probably the classiest couple we’ve seen in years." Her words made me feel slightly better. “Thank you.” “And your man. Whew. I sure hope the fire alarms don’t trip because he is smoking hot.” She fanned herself to emphasize her point.

RECIPE FOR THE ARTIST’S WAY Find something that might be edible. There’s that block of tofu you never did anything with. Put it in the oven. Set the oven for 475 degrees. Do not watch it. When the smoke alarm goes off, take a look. See what’s happened. YOU ARE NOW IN FLOW.

The crucial thing to remember with fibromyalgia is that the nervous system is stuck in the stress response (Martínez-Lavín 2012, 1998). In fact, all symptoms of fibromyalgia, including excessive pain, are the result of a complex chain reaction set off by a hyperactive stress response. The stress response is an automatic brain reflex that is commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” instinct. It has little to do with feeling stressed out. Rather, it refers to the body’s automatic response to danger, triggered by a primal brain area whose only focus is on survival. When a potential threat is detected—a loud banging on your front door, a stranger moving quickly toward you on the street—the brain prepares the body by pumping adrenaline and tightening muscles, readying your whole system for action. This is the body’s normal response to danger—great for a short-term response, and activated only when there is an imminent threat. In fibromyalgia, however, the stress response never stops, like a smoke alarm that goes off incessantly even though there’s no fire.

Yeah, well, we're all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three a.m. on a high ceiling and there's no one to hit it with a broom but you.

Scarlett …” The alarming voice of Nickolas sounded from behind her. This girl was looking for her own execution. As much as he dreaded admitting it they had lost. The rebellion failed many and young people sacrificed their lives for this failure. Scarlett was a victim he was not willing to sacrifice. She only turned to him without saying a word. Her gaze was invincible. He saw literal flames burning in her blue eyes. He recognized the emotion immediately. Scarlett’s eyes were burning with rage! Was he seeing things, or were these actual flames? “It’s time for this bastard to pay for being such a treacherous ass!” she spoke. With every word, it was as if the fire in her eyes whirled around her pupils like a vortex. She felt her whole body start to burn. The blood in her veins was boiling like never before. Smoke began to emerge from her skin. It hurt her, she felt as if her whole body had set itself on fire. The pain could not be compared to the first time it happened with her palms. She was fighting the urge to scream as loud as she could, but could not afford even the slightest distraction. Nickolas’s life, as well as Chris’, depended on her. The men around her looked stunned at what was happening. Pratcher realized that nothing had played with his sanity when the soldiers, along with Hammerdell, took a step back after the girl’s body had begun emitting smoke. It was all very real indeed. What the hell was going on? “Get away from her! She will set herself on fire!” Christopher grabbed the man’s shoulders and pulled him back. He knew what was going to happen. He had seen Scarlett burn her palms, but never her whole body. He was afraid for her! The telekinesis with the jeep was a step away from killing her, and with that burning, her death could be inevitable. There was not enough energy in her body to escape without consequences. Scarlett did not stop focusing on her anger. She had to maintain it if she wanted to achieve the desired result. The pain was taking over her, she felt exhausted and gave out smoke. Her eyes did not go down from Hammerdell. At first, her hands were ablaze, and fire spread all over her body as if it had been covered with gas. Her clothes became ash. Scarlett remained naked under the tongues of the red flames. She fell to her knees on the pebble track - the fire swirled, and the pain was growing even more intolerable. “Shoot!” The mayor screamed in a voice full of fear. He had never seen such a thing. What was that hat girl? Definitely not an ordinary person! Seconds before they pulled the trigger, the guns jumped off from the hands of the soldiers all by themselves. A cone of fire separated from Scarlett and flew towards them, enclosing them in a perfect circle. She sacrificed her last drop of strength to create a fiery dome above them, which trapped her enemies and became a lid from which they could not get away. They burned alive with the last shrieking screams of panic, fear, and despair. It was over. Hammerdell had earned his merit. Now, the rebels could finally rest easy. In pain and exhaustion, she left herself get swallowed by the darkness.

Lament's trot soon became a canter. Her canter, a gallop. The forest blurred around them as they picked up speed, blazing through copses and thickets, the rhythm of the horse's hooves drumming like thunder. Despite the stinging wind crushing past them, it wasn't cold. Heat radiated from Lament's black coat, and when Emeline looked down she found red flames flickering in the horse's mane. Tongues of fire engulfed Emeline's fingers, licking her skin. She jerked hand free, staring in horror. But her fingers were unsinged. Holy cats! Was Lament an ember mare? It was impossible. The wild, unearthly horses were forged of fire and said to be uncatchable. Untamable. In no story she knew had one ever been ridden. But Emeline had thought shadow skins impossible too. The pungent tang of smoke smoldered in the air. They were out of the Stain---nothing dead surrounded them here. The forest was lush and green and living. But in the distance, Emeline saw red. Fire. It surged toward them from the right, spreading quickly. Emeline was about to cry out in alarm, in case the boy at her back hadn't seen it, when she heard the sound of hoofbeats. Hundreds of them. Pummeling the earth in time with Lament's. Wait. Emeline squinted into the distance. It wasn't a forest fire advancing on them. It was a massive herd of ember mares. Their black bodies raged red, like burning coal, and their manes smoldered with bright flames. They were stampeding, headed straight for Lament with no sign of slowing or stopping.

They were independent women – self-sufficient, autonomous. They could change their own light bulbs and the batteries in their smoke alarms, refill their own windscreen wash bottles in their cars, put out their own bins,

Fire alarm oversight is less constant and direct. In this model, legislators set up rules and procedures that empower citizens, interest groups, and other third parties to monitor agency activities and sound the alarm if they see smoke. Legislators spring into action only when someone else is important enough and upset enough to ring the bell.68 From Congress’s perspective, the beauty of this system is efficiency. It provides oversight while freeing up legislators to pay more attention to activities—like district visits and constituent requests—that help them win re-election.

Isn't that what a bar is for? To be a safe space for the lonely and the unhappy, for those who don't want to go home to their empty houses of their chirping smoke alarms of their disinterested boyfriends of themselves, worst of all themselves?

My overarching premise is that good people who want to be married accidentally hurt one another and betray each other’s trust without either partner being aware of it as it is happening until their marriage slowly becomes toxic and/or ends. Just as health professionals in the 1950s and ’60s were compelled to sound the alarm regarding the dangers of tobacco smoking to a then-unaware public, this book’s purpose is to raise awareness of routine, everyday behaviors happening in marriage (or any long-term romantic relationship) that will lead to relationship sickness and death if gone unchecked.

We are also capable of smelling warning signals in our environment, just like animals. The sense of smell, our body’s alarm system, is constantly on the alert for threats, and subtly nudges our behavior accordingly. The scent of women’s tears, for example, has been shown to decrease sexual arousal among men. Johan has found that we can differentiate healthy strangers from sick individuals based solely on their body odors, a cue that may have evolved to help us avoid infection. And of course we can smell some dangers, like smoke or gas, before we see them.

I was putting out a lot of fires back then, and because with him there was no smoke, no flame, no alarms, I wasn’t paying attention.

where there’s smoke there’s fire and this girl is just begging to sound the alarm.

her lunch shift. Then all of a sudden, I heard this giant WHOOM! People started yelling, the fire alarm started blaring, and I could smell smoke. A second later, Mom was there. “Come on, Rafe,” she said. “We have to go—right now!” And she hustled me out the back door.

Imagine it: a person of the Dark persuasion in their midst. What if he should ask for a vial of Afro-Sheen or some other ethnically oriented product with which they were totally unfamiliar? Why, the smoke alarms would melt, screaming like dying witches, when their collective minds steamed to a stop. Do we look like thrill-seekers? Wasn’t it enough that we had to put up that sign reading NO HABLA ESPANOL and acknowledge the existence of thirty percent of the population, even in the negative? No, we shall err on the side of safety, thank you, and in lieu of sand in which to bury our heads, we shall head into the back room.

HOUSEHOLD MAINTENANCE I’ve written the following list to help you with the maintenance tasks that will have the most impact on the longevity of your belongings. Every day Act fast to clean up spills on furniture or clothing. Update software as needed to avoid getting hacked. Every week Vacuum, dust, and clean the house and furniture. Condition regularly worn shoes. Clean clothes as necessary. Clean out the dishwasher filter. Every month Descale the coffee maker (see this page). Condition regularly used leather bags and shoes worn less often. Fix any garments in the mending pile. Every three months Oil wood cutting boards and spoons. Put frozen vinegar cubes in the garbage disposal. Check the smoke alarms. Check the water softener (if you have one). Every six months Deep clean the house. Turn and vacuum the mattress. Launder the pillows and duvet. Polish wood furniture. Deep clean the fridge. Clean the refrigerator coils. Put petroleum jelly on the fridge seals. Run the cleaning cycle of the dishwasher and washing machine. Inspect the gutters. Every year Take stock of the items in your life (see Chapter 8). Have any leather jackets professionally cleaned. Get the knives sharpened. Clean the filter in the kitchen hood fan. Check the grouting around the tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. Flush the hot-water system and have the boiler serviced. Inspect the roof and exterior of your home (best done in spring/summer). Fix any loose fixings or screws. Clean and consider repainting/resealing the exterior woodwork. Every two years Have a professional deep clean of your upholstery and carpets.

point out that it was a romantic gesture aimed at him and not the couple of overweight blokes smoking and playing cards whom she had glimpsed inside the Portakabin. Thanks,” he said, taking the sandwich off the plate and biting into it without even looking at it. Crystal spared another thought for the chickens. God only knows what they had gone through in order to keep Tommy Holroyd fed. Best not to think about it. Keep your mouth shut. “Anything else, babe?” she asked. “Nah. Close the door again on the way out, will you?” The entry phone buzzed while she was still in the hallway and Tommy shouted through the door, “Get that, will you?” When Crystal peered at the monitor next to the front door she could see a girl standing in front of the camera. She was so short that only the top half of her head showed. Crystal pressed the button on the microphone and said, “Hello?” The girl held up something, a wallet or a card, Crystal couldn’t make it out. “I’m DC Reggie Chase,” she said. “I’m here with my colleague DC Ronnie Dibicki.” She indicated someone else, out of sight of the camera. “We’d like to have a chat with Mr. Holroyd. Mr. Thomas Holroyd.” Detectives? “It’s a routine inquiry,” the detective said. “Nothing to be alarmed by.” Keep

Artemisia waves for me to be quiet and crosses to the door herself, opening it the same way she always does—with the point of her dagger in the guest’s face. This time, it’s a very alarmed Erik on the other side of her blade. When she sees him, Artemisia gives a loud sigh—as if he’s inconveniencing her by not trying to kill me—before reluctantly lowering her dagger.

I switched on the bedside lamp, and the room rushed into view: my favorite wedding photo on the bureau, sweatshirt draped across a chair, lotion bottles on the dresser. Nothing appeared amiss, but my heart thumped erratically. I got up and peered out the window. It took a moment for the scene to register in my sleepy brain. Smoke and flames billowed from the house next door, from the Kimballs’ first-floor windows. Their fire alarm kicked on—a high-pitched beeping. A child’s terrified cries pierced the night. Mia. She was trapped in her bedroom on the second floor, right above a raging fire.

The victims smelled smoke. They all wanted to get out but they didn’t hear an alarm. The alarm, in that situation, wasn’t there to announce there was a fire—they knew there was a fire. The alarm was there to give them permission to get up and leave. Nobody wanted to be first, the social pressure kept them glued to their seats. Well, mass violence works the same way. It just takes one person to be the fire alarm, to give everybody permission to go wild.

Yeah, well, we’re all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three a.m. on a high ceiling and there’s no one to hit it with a broom but you.

I’m not dating for the foreseeable future. I don’t need any men in my life right now. Or ever.” She scoffed. “Yeah, well, we’re all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three a.m. on a high ceiling and there’s no one to hit it with a broom but you.