Smoke And Scar Quotes

War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here." She touched his chest and felt a rush of love for the heart that moved his blood, for his smooth skin and his scars and his unsoldierly tenderness. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and said, "We are the beginning.

Azriel was nothing short of beautiful. Even with those scarred hands and the shadows that flowed from him like smoke, she’d always found him to be the prettiest of the three males who called themselves brothers.

If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon. Here on the upper thigh at this smooth pasture neighbor to your hair or the crease that cuts your back. This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife. I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you -- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised them over smoking tar, helped the honey gatherers... When we swam once I touched you in water and our bodies remained free, you could hold me and be blind of smell. You climbed the bank and said this is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter. And you searched your arms for the missing perfume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in an act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of scar. You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife. Smell me.

...she's leaving now. ... Janis attacks the back door of the school gym and finds herself in a heavy cloud of smoke. She realizes she's found the Goths' hangout. Who knew? "Oof," someone says. She keeps walking, muttering, "sorry" to whomever it was she hit with the flying door. *** Cabel: ... That was the Goth stage where I decided I'd never get the girl of my dreams because of my scars. Not to mention the hairstyle. (pause) But then she slammed a door handle into my gut. And, when a girl does that to a boy, it means she likes him.

When the plane went down in San Francisco, I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes. He memorizes the wrecked metal details, the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke. Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes: The one in blue Kentucky, in yellow Iowa. How people go on, and how people don’t. It was almost a year before I learned that his brother was a pilot. I can’t help it, I love the way men love.

Karou was mysterious. She had no apparent family, she never talked about herself, and she was expert at evading questions--for all that her friends knew of her background, she might have sprung whole from the head of Zeus. And she was endlessly surprising. Her pockets were always spilling out curious things: ancient bronze coins, teeth, tiny jade tigers no bigger than her thumbnail. She might reveal, while haggling for sunglasses with an African street vendor, that she spoke fluent Yoruba. Once, Kaz had undressed her to discover a knife hidden in her boot. There was the matter of her being impossible to scare and, of course, there were the scars on her abdomen: three shiny divots that could only have been made by bullets.

I don’t see through you,” she said, her melodic voice so soft that he thought he might have imagined it. “I just see you.

Where the smoke cleared, the crystal air, with some of the efficacy of faith, seemed to remove the mountains almost to the sea, bringing them so near that one might count the scarred glades on their wooded sides.

I met an angel in Morocco and all I got were these lousy scars.

Yes, Smoke told him reluctantly, Lucivar had cried. Heart pain. Caught-in-a-trap pain. The Lady had petted and petted, sung and sung. It had been more than a dream, then. In one of the dreamscapes Black Widows spun so well, Jaenelle had met the boy he had been and had drawn the poison from the soul wound. He had wept for the boy, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to do, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to be. But he didn’t weep for the man he’d become. “Ah, Lucivar,” she’d said regretfully as they’d walked through the dreamscape. “I can heal the scars on your body, but I can’t heal the scars of the soul. Not yours, not mine. You have to learn to live with them. You have to choose to live beyond them.

Well, it’s very much for each person to experience alone,” he said, and whatever truth he meant to get at, his eyes were the visible scars of it.

We’ll rise from the ashes with smoke in our lungs and scars on our skin, but we will persevere. We will thrive.

There's beauty in the imperfect too. you are a God who uses broken vessels. You are not afraid of human limitations or scars.

Who did this to you?

I am Elyria Lightbreaker. The Revenant. And I may have been left broken, but I am not so easily shattered.

She twisted her hair as if the question made her uncomfortable. “Seeing the past is simple magic. Seeing the present or the future—that is not.” “Yeah, well,” Leo said. “Watch and learn, Sunshine. I just connect these last two wires, and—” The bronze plate sparked. Smoke billowed from the sphere. A flash of fire raced up Leo’s sleeve. He pulled off his shirt, threw it down, and stomped on it. He could tell Calypso was trying not to laugh, but she was shaking with the effort. “Not a word,” Leo warned. She glanced at his bare chest, which was sweaty, bony, and streaked with old scars from weapon-making accidents. “Nothing worth commenting on,” she assured him. “If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation.” “Right,” he said. “Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time.

whatever truth he meant to get at, his eyes were the visible scars of it.

Another day down the mines of our lives. We drink 'til we stink and smoke 'til we choke because that's how we get things done, you and me. Spending our lives making things and making things out of our lives, because anything else would be dull as hell and we're damned if we're going to sit at the other end of whatever years we get saying, well, what the fuck was that for? Years of scars, lipstick and tears, and every day the dawn comes on we turn our eyes up in surprise, saying, "There's that goddamn sun again.

Once, not long ago, in her life before the front lines, she would have thought this was ridiculous. She would have said no, I have other plans right now. But that was before, a time that was gilded by a different slant of light, and this present moment was now limned in the blue tinge of after. She had seen the fragility of life. How one could wake to a sunrise and die by sunset. She had run through the smoke and the fire and the agony with Roman, his hand in hers. They had both tasted Death, brushed shoulders with it. They had scars on their skin and on their souls from that fractured moment, and now Iris saw more than she had before. She saw the light, but she also saw the shadows.

Ten years it has been, through our deepest secrets and prettiest moments… under the handsomest sky so bedecked by the stars and sometimes between the dusty roads that often blurred our eyes with smoke and scars.

Mathematicians still don’t understand the ball our hands made, or how your electrocuted grandparents made it possible for you to light my cigarettes with your eyes. It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the window to leave six ounces of orange juice and a doughnut by the bed, or me becoming the sand you dug your toes in, on the beach, when you wished to hide them from the sun and the fixed eyes of strangers, and your breath broke in waves over my earlobe, splashing through my head, spilling out over the opposite lobe, and my first poems under your door in the unshaven light of dawn: Your eyes remind me of a brick wall about to be hammered by a drunk driver. I’m that driver. All night I’ve swallowed you in the bar. Once I kissed the scar, stretching its sealed eyelid along your inner arm, dried raining strands of hair, full of pheromones, discovered all your idiosyncratic passageways, so I’d know where to run when the cops came. Your body is the country I’ll never return to. The man in charge of what crosses my mind will lose fingernails, for not turning you away at the border. But at this moment when sweat tingles from me, and blame is as meaningless as shooting up a cow with milk, I realise my kisses filled the halls of your body with smoke, and the lies came like a season. Most drunks don’t die in accidents they orchestrate, and I swallowed a hand grenade that never stops exploding.

He takes a kitchen chair and sits in the yard and all the ducks come around. He holds up the cheese curls in one hand and caramel popcorn in the other and his audience looks up and he tells them a joke. He says: So one day a duck come into this bar and ordered a whiskey and a bump and the bartender was pretty surprised, he says, "You know we don't get many of you ducks in here." The duck says, "At these prices I'm not surprised.* And he tosses out the popcorn and they laugh. 'Wak wak wak wak wak. I was shot in the leg in the war.' Have a scar? 'No thanks, I don't smoke.

I turn and I walk my tray to the conveyor and I drop it on the belt and I start to walk out of the Dining Hall. As I head through the Glass Corridor separating the men and women, I see Lilly sitting alone at a table. She looks up at me and she smiles and our eyes meet and I smile back. She looks down and I stop walking and I stare at her. She looks up and she smiles again. She is as beautiful a girl as I have ever seen. Her eyes, her lips, her teeth, her hair, her skin. The black circles beneath her eyes, the scars I can see on her wrists, the ridiculous clothes she wears that are ten sizes too big, the sense of sadness and pain she wears that is even bigger. I stand and I stare at her, just stare stare stare. Men walk past me and other women look at me and LIlly doesn’t understand what I’m doing or why I’m doing it and she’s blushing and it’s beautiful. I stand there and I stare. I stare because I know where I am going I’m not going to see any beauty. They don’t sell crack in Mansions or fancy Department Stores and you don’t go to luxury Hotels or Country Clubs to smoke it. Strong, cheap liquor isn’t served in five-star Restaurants or Champagne Bars and it isn’t sold in gourmet Groceries or boutique Liquor stores. I’m going to go to a horrible place in a horrible neighborhood run by horrible people providing product for the worst Society has to offer. There will be no beauty there, nothing even resembling beauty. There will be Dealers and Addicts and Criminals and Whores and Pimps and Killers and Slaves. There will be drugs and liquor and pipes and bottles and smoke and vomit and blood and human rot and human decay and human disintegration. I have spent much of my life in these places. When I leave here I will fond one of the and I will stay there until I die. Before I do, however, I want one last look at something beautiful. I want one last look so that I have something to hold in my mind while I’m dying, so that when I take my last breath I will be able to think of something that will make me smile, so that in the midst of the horror I can hold on to some shred of humanity.

There is beauty in the imperfect too. You are a God who uses broken vessels. You are not afraid of human limitations or scars.

Nothing like smoking a cig in the middle of the night while you brood.

broken, but I am not so easily shattered.

Power is power,” Kit said. “It lures everyone.

All that brooding you’ve been doing must be taxing indeed.

You think you’re so expendable, that you’re not worth saving? I disa-fucking-gree. And I really wish you would stop with this self-pitying, self-sacrificing bullshit.

The infamous Revenant . . . who was, in reality, a woman like any other. A brash, reckless woman with a reputation so much bigger than her. Impulsive. Petulant. Maddening. Beautiful.

Over his years of helping runaways to find the Smoke, David had encountered wild animals, forest fires, and bio-engineered poisonous plants. But nothing was more dangerous than a city afraid of change.

he merely leaned back on her couch and observed, encouraged, supervised with eyes like smoking tar, asking softly what good is it to be left with no trace, to be wounded without the pleasure of a scar?

It's easy for the reader from his quiet vantage point high above the melee whence his eye sweeps over the whole horizon and he can see everything that is happening below--but a man down there can only see the subject nearest him. In the same way, in the world chronicle of mankind, there seem to be many centuries that could be crossed out and expunged as useless. There have been many errors committed in the world which we would not expect a child to commit today. What tortuous, blind, impassable, devious paths has mankind trodden in its search for eternal truth, while all the time, right before it, lay the straight road leading to the glittering edifice destined to be the palace of the ruler. This road is the clearest and the most beautiful of all, flooded by sunlight during the day and brightly illuminated at night, but the human throng flows past it in darkness. And how many times, even when inspired by God-given good sense, have men still managed to step back and turn away from it; succeeded again and again in losing themselves in back alleys in broad daylight; succeeded again and again in filling each others eyes with blinding smoke and trudging wearily after a mirage; again and again succeeded in coming to the very brink of the precipice, then asking each other, horrified, in which direction the road can be found. The present generation see all this clearly and is surprised at the erring and blundering of its ancestors, laughs at their folly. So it's not for nothing that mankind's chronicle is scarred out by heavenly flames, that each letter in it cries out, and that from every page a piercing finger is pointed at the present generation. But today's generation just laughs, sure of its strength and full of pride, and it starts off along a path of new errors over which its decedents in turn will pour their scorn.

When I first read The Rebel, this splendid line came leaping from the page like a dolphin from a wave. I memorized it instantly, and from then on Camus was my man. I wanted to write like that, in a prose that sang like poetry. I wanted to look like him. I wanted to wear a Bogart-style trench coat with the collar turned up, have an untipped Gauloise dangling from my lower lip, and die romantically in a car crash. At the time, the crash had only just happened. The wheels of the wrecked Facel Vega were practically still spinning, and at Sydney University I knew exiled French students, spiritually scarred by service in Indochina, who had met Camus in Paris: one of them claimed to have shared a girl with him. Later on, in London, I was able to arrange the trench coat and the Gauloise, although I decided to forgo the car crash until a more propitious moment. Much later, long after having realized that smoking French cigarettes was just an expensive way of inhaling nationalized industrial waste, I learned from Olivier Todd's excellent biography of Camus that the trench coat had been a gift from Arthur Koestler's wife and that the Bogart connection had been, as the academics say, no accident. Camus had wanted to look like Bogart, and Mrs. Koestler knew where to get the kit. Camus was a bit of an actor--he though, in fact, that he was a lot of an actor, although his histrionic talent was the weakest item of his theatrical equipment--and, being a bit of an actor, he was preoccupied by questions of authenticity, as truly authentic people seldom are. But under the posturing agonies about authenticity there was something better than authentic: there was something genuine. He was genuinely poetic. Being that, he could apply two tests simultaneously to his own language: the test of expressiveness, and the test of truth to life. To put it another way, he couldn't not apply them.

The hoarse church-bells of London ring; The hoarser horns of London croak; The poor brown lives of London cling About the poor brown streets like smoke; The deep air stands above my roof Like water, to the floating stars. My friend and I - we sit aloof - We sit and smile, and bind our scars.

Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, Can grin through storms of death and find a gap In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky That hastens over them where they endure Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. O my brave brown companions, when your souls Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead, Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, Death will stand grieving in that field of war Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; The unreturning army that was youth; The legions who have suffered and are dust.

Heather strained to see through the smoke, trying to find her parents and Baby Jacks. She saw a collection of around fifteen wolves in the foreground, about halfway up the meadow, near the fallen maple limb. The maple tree, half-burned with a tangled scar of black char where the lightning had ripped through it, somehow still stood. The hard rain had doused the flames that would have surely overtaken it.

You are not in love with Rinaldo Damiani whose hair smells like Sunday morning in the sun, you do not even know him, he doesn’t know you. You can rest your hands on the scars of his shoulders and long to rid him of every breath of pain and still, you will not be in love with him, because this isn’t love. Love is a home and a mortgage and the promise of permanence; love is measured and paced, and this, the too-hasty sprint of your pulse, that’s drugs. You know drugs, don’t you, Charlotte? Euphoria can be bottled, it can be smoked, it will dissolve on your tongue and burn through the vacant cavity of your empty fucking chest. His hands on you, that can be preserved, it can be painted, it can be committed to the canvas of your imagination, and it can stay in the vaults of your private longings, your little reveries, your twisted dreams.

I’m sorry.” The words didn’t touch his sorrow for her. On impulse, he clasped her hand, and she didn’t pull away. He should’ve recognized the smoke screens she put up, the first line of defense of the wounded and scarred. “Don’t be,” she said. “I only told you because I’m sick of your condemnation. But I don't want your pity either.” He swept his thumb along the side of her palm. “It’s not pity.” “Then what is it?” Understanding. A barrier between them slipping away. “A wake-up call,” he said, really seeing her for the first time.

She realized at once that he expected trouble and that he was used to handling deadly situations. It was the first time she’d actually seen him do it, despite their long history. It gave her a new, adult perspective on his lifestyle. No wonder he couldn’t settle down and become a family man. She’d been crazy to expect it, even in her fantasies. He was used to danger and he enjoyed the challenges it presented. It would be like housing a tiger in an apartment. She sighed as she saw the last tattered dream of a future with him going up in smoke. Tate looked through the tiny peephole and took his hand away from the pistol. He glanced at Cecily with an expression she couldn’t define before he abruptly opened the door. Colby Lane walked in, eyebrows raised, new scars on his face and bone weariness making new lines in it. “Colby!” Cecily exclaimed with exaggerated delight. “Welcome home!” Tate’s face contracted as if he’d been hit. Colby noticed that, and smiled at Cecily. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, looking from one tense face to the other. “No,” Tate said coolly as he reholstered his pistol. “We were discussing security options, but if you’re going to be around, they won’t be necessary.” “What?” “I’m fairly certain that the gambling syndicate tried to kill her,” Tate said somberly, nodding toward Cecily. “A car almost ran her down in her own parking lot. She ended up in the hospital. And decided not to tell anyone about it,” he added with a vicious glare in her direction. “Way to go, Cecily,” Colby said glumly. “You could have ended up floating in the Potomac. I told you before I left to be careful. Didn’t you listen?” She shot him a glare. “I’m not an idiot. I can call 911,” she said, insulted. Colby was still staring at Tate. “You’ve cut your hair.” “I got tired of braids,” came the short reply. “I have to get back to work. If you need me, I’ll be around.” He paused at the doorway. “Keep an eye on her,” Tate told Colby. “She takes risks.” “I don’t need a big strong man to look out for me. I can keep myself out of trouble, thank you very much,” she informed Tate. He gave her a long, pained last look and closed the door behind him. As he walked down the staircase from her apartment, he couldn’t shake off the way she looked and acted. Something was definitely wrong with her, and he was going to find out what.

Ground Zero by Stewart Stafford At the rim of the abyss, Among the malignant smoking rubble, And the plane and body parts, The traumatised rediscovered their purpose. In a moonscape of fallen pride, identity, and ambition, The anonymous saved something of the unsalvageable, Searchers with sandwiches and coffee in the toxic dust, Manna from Good Samaritans with unconditional gratitude. As the lungs struggled to take in air, The hearts of each participant enlarged, And found shelter in non-partisan synergy, Becoming a family of former strangers. The lesson of the lost was to stay loving and open-hearted, Not turn away and isolate from life and others, Even when the scars became unbearable, Their stolen affection remained a towering beacon from the ruins. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

A dingy emblem on the door depicted a little boy peeing into a pot. The rest of the bar was equally drab and tasteless. Dim bulbs behind red-tasseled lamp shades barely illuminated each of a dozen maroon vinyl booths, which marched along one wall toward the murky front windows. Chipped Formica tables anchored the booths in place. Opposite the row of booths was a long, scarred wooden bar with uncomfortable-looking stools. Behind the bar, sitting on glass shelves in front of a cloudy mirror, were endless rows of bottles, each looking as forlorn as the folks for whom they waited. He caught the strong odors of liquor and tobacco smoke, and the weaker scents of cleaning chemicals and vomit. In one of the booths , two heads bobbed with the movement of mug-clenching fists. A scrawny bartender with droopy eyelids picked his teeth with a swizzle stick and chatted quietly with a woman seated at the bar. Otherwise the bar was empty.

somewhere there is a women in China holding a black umbrella so she won’t taste the salt of the rain when the sky begins to weep, there is a 17 year old girl who smells like pomegranates and has summer air tight on her naked skin, wrapping around her scars like veins in a bloody garden, who won’t make it past tomorrow, there is a young man, who buys yellow flowers for the woman in apartment 84B, who learned braille when he realized she couldn’t read his poetry about her white neck and mint eyes there are people watching films, making love for the first time, opening mail with the heading of ‘i miss you’, cooking noodles with organic spices and red sauces, buying lemon detergent, ignoring ‘do not smoke’ signs, painting murals of his lips in abandoned warehouses, chewing the words ‘i love you’ over and over again, swallowing phone numbers and forgotten birthdays, eating strawberry pies, drinking white wine off of each others open mouths, ignoring the telephone, reading this poem somewhere someone is thinking i’m alone somewhere someone finally understands they never really were

Amar loosed a breath. “I understand, you know.” I looked up. “The forced silence…the voices of this palace.” We stood there, not saying anything. I felt too aware of the space between us. Even with Akaran’s secrets spiraling in the shadows of my head, I couldn’t ignore the weightless feeling that had gripped me. Standing beside Amar did something to me. Like my center had shifted to make room for him. “You do not trust me, do you?” “No,” I said. I had no reason to lie. “I told you in the Night Bazaar that trust is won in actions and time. Not words.” “I wish you trusted me.” “I don’t place my faith in wishes,” I said. “How can I? I can’t even--” I bit back the rest of my words. I can’t even see your face. Perhaps Gupta was lying and he really did have a disfiguring scar. Amar moved closer until we were only a hand space apart. “What?” he coaxed, his voice hovering between a growl and a question. “I can’t even see your face.” A strange chill still curled off of him like smoke and even though the glass garden was teeming with little lights, shades veiled him. “Is that what you want?” he said. “Would it make you trust me?” “It would be a start.” “You are impossible to please.” I said nothing. Amar leaned forward, and I felt the silken trails of his hood brush across my neck. My breath constricted. “Is that what you want? An unguarded gaze can spill a thousand secrets.” “I would know them anyway,” I said evenly.

I ran. It was fantastic how far I ran without stopping to rest. I can't even remember what places I passed. I must have left by the back gate next to the Kyohoku Tower in the north of the temple precincts, then I must have passed by the Myoo Hall, run up the mountain path that was bordered by bamboo grass and azalea, and reached the top of Mount Hidari Daimonji. Yes, it was surely on top of Mount Hidari Daimonji that I lay down on my hack in the bamboo field in the shadow of the red pines and tried to still the fierce beating of my heart. This was the mountain that protected the Golden Temple from the north. The cry of some startled birds brought me to my senses. Or else it was a bird that flew close to my face with a great fluttering of its wings. As I lay there on my back I gazed at the night sky. The birds soared over the branches of the redpines in great numbers and the thin flakes from the fire, which were already becoming scarce, floated in the sky above my head. I sat up and looked far down the ravine towards the Golden temple. A strange sound echoed from there. It was like the sound of crackers. It was like the sound of countless people's soul joints all cracking at once. From where I sat the Golden Temple itself was invisible. All that I could see was the eddying smoke and the great fire that rose into the sky. The flakes from the fire drifted between the trees and the Golden Temple's sky seemed to be strewn with golden sand. I crossed my legs and sat gazing for a long time at the scene. When I came to myself, I found that my body was covered in blisters and scars and that I was bleeding profusely. My fingers also were stained with blood, evidently from when I had hurt them by knocking against the temple door. I licked my wounds like an animal that has fled from its pursuers. I looked in my pocket and extracted the bottle of arsenic, wrapped in my handkerchief, and the knife. I threw them down the ravine. Then I noticed the pack of cigarettes in my other pocket. I took one out and started smoking. I felt like a man who settles down for a smoke after finishing a job of work. I wanted to live.

You are not tainted. You are not weak for bearing scars. You are not a burden.” She breathed. “You survived. You are brave and strong and worthy of the magic inside you. Of the love and beauty inside you. And you are worthy of being loved and protected. It doesn’t make you weak, it makes you strong to accept a hand and trust that you are not alone or lost in this world. And, if you want, you will never be alone again.

Why would you want such a ridiculous scar? Every time I see it I’m going to remember that I threw a knife at a loaf of bread and missed.” “That’s not how I see it,” Brela said, sliding her fingers through Farrah’s. Light, pale blueish-purple eyes met hers. “I see it as a reminder of you deciding to take charge and fight back. I see it as a bonding moment between two strong women who were learning to protect themselves and others. I see it as a reminder that scars don’t make us weak or broken or unworthy of love.

smoke-scarred heavy-water sound

eye combination my mother always made a fuss about. Maybe that’s why my skin crawled every time someone commented on how attractive a couple we were. It was more a reflection on me than us. He lifts his hand and moves my hair off my forehead. The gesture is intimate, but I’m too stunned to stop him. He brushes his thumb over the scar on my temple. “I was worried about you. You wouldn’t let me see you in the hospital. Or after?” A sigh escapes before I can school my features into something a little more… regretful. “Well, I was embarrassed.” That’s a lie. I just didn’t want to face whatever the fuck emotional roller coaster I was riding the last six months. Seriously. My life went from normal to shit in a split second. Adding Jack—and the life that I thought I had, the one that seemed to go up in a puff of smoke when I woke up in the hospital—would’ve been more pain than I was ready to accept. “Violet!” I step away from Jack, ignoring his wounded expression, and turn to my other friends. Half the dance team is here, and they all crowd around me. Someone pulls at my coffee-stained blouse, and another swoops in to clean the floor where my cup dropped. I had forgotten, in my Jack-shock. “Lucky it wasn’t hot.” Willow nudges me. “Luck and I aren’t on speaking terms.” She visited faithfully every day while I was stuck in the hospital. Kept me sane, kept me looped in to the gossip. She’s the only one who knows what I went through, and I’m keeping it that way. I’m not in the habit of airing my dirty laundry—or my newfound nightmares. I’ve been plagued by bright lights, crunching metal, and snapping bones. She rolls her eyes at my luck comment. “You need to change. We’re taking you out.” Oh boy. My first instinct is to say no, but honestly? I could use a bit of normalcy. My therapist—the talk one, not the physical one—said something about getting back into a routine. Well, for the last two years, I’ve gone out with my girls on Friday nights. There’s nothing more normal than that. I’m actually looking forward to it. She leads the way to the bedroom I haven’t been in since… before. She steps aside and lets me do the honors. Opening the door is like cracking into a time capsule. Fucking devastating. Willow stands behind me, her hand on my shoulder, as I stare around at the remnants of the person I used to be. If I wasn’t aware of how different I was after six months away, I am now. Mentally, physically. There are still clothes that I left on the floor. My chair is pulled out and covered in clothes. There’s a pile of books that I had planned to conquer over the summer in the center of the desk. My bed is made. “I kept the door open

When the plane went down in San Francisco, I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes. He memorizes the wrecked metal details, the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke. Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes: The one in blue Kentucky. In yellow Iowa. How people go on, and how people don’t.

Then take this little glass bottle. Go into the back room and order something cheap, in keeping with your looks. Then when you are all alone break the bottle. It is full of gas drippings. Your nose will dictate what to do next. Just tell the proprietor you saw the gas company’s wagon on the next block and come up here and tell me.” I entered. There was a sinister-looking man, with a sort of unscrupulous intelligence, writing at a table. As he wrote and puffed at his cigar, I noticed a scar on his face, a deep furrow running from the lobe of his ear to his mouth. That, I knew, was a brand set upon him by the Camorra. I sat and smoked and sipped slowly for several minutes, cursing him inwardly more for his presence than for his evident look of the “mala vita.” At last he went out to ask the barkeeper for a stamp. Quickly I tiptoed over to another corner of the room and ground the little bottle under my heel. Then I resumed my seat.

I screamed in agony, but then in ecstacy; his smouldering, smoky breath burning me to the lip of the abyss that was lit at its deepest point by a star of pulsing red. Movement there; bats, ravens, demons; all the creatures of the lake of fire rose to claw my hair; their talons in my flesh that shuddered to a nameless delight. I wanted the pain, craved it; reduced to an animal fury. He filled me with the hot, smoking essence of his incomprehensible soul. It ripped me, scarred me, ate into me like acid. It was melting me apart, the sizzling rain of hell and I screamed, and I screamed again.

Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue Scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town Took the one eyed-jacks across the railroad tracks And the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through He's a juvenile delinquent, never learned how to behave But the cops would never think to look in Burma-Shave And the road was like a ribbon and the moon was like a bone He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known He kind of looked like Farley Granger with his hair slicked back She says, I'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat How far are you going? Said depends on what you mean He says I'm only stopping here to get some gasoline I guess I'm going thataway just as long as it's paved And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma Shave And with her knees up on the glove compartment She took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like root beer And she popped her gum and arched her back Hell, Marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road Some nights my heart pounds like thunder Don't know why it don't explode 'Cause everyone in this stinking town's got one foot in the grave And I'd rather take my chances out in Burma Shave Presley's what I go by, why don't you change the stations? Count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror She said mister, anywhere you point this thing It got to beat the hell out of the sting Of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin' And so drill me a hole with a barber pole And I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight Why don't you have another swig and pass that car if you're so brave I wanna get there before the sun comes up in Burma Shave And the spiderweb crack and the mustang screamed The smoke from the tires and the twisted machine Just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved Lie swindled from them on the way to Burma Shave And the sun hit the derrick and cast a batwing shadow Up against the car door on the shotgun side And when they pulled her from the wreck You know she still had on her shades They say that dreams are growing wild Just this side Of Burma Shave

You know what I hate the most about battles?” “Gettin’ your shitty face all scarred up?” “Fuck off, I’m still prettier than you. And no, it’s the food. Battle food is either the dry shit we carry in our fuckin’ pockets all day or this charred shit we gotta catch ourselves that’s barely got any fat on it and tastes like smoke. Just once, it would be nice to camp next to a fuckin’ tavern.” A few of the soldiers chuckle. “Or a saddle house!” “Well, what I hate about battles is having to dig our own shit hole,” Varg jokes. “Or having to piss in the snow and watch your dick shrink from the cold,” another soldier says. “Hate to break it to you, but your cock is always that small!

How many times, she reflected ruefully, she had sought to understand a wounded wild creature. But it was another matter entirely to penetrate the mystery of a human being. Reaching Christopher’s door, she knocked softly. When there came no response, she let herself inside. To her surprise, the room brimmed with daylight, the late August sun illuminating tiny floating dust motes by the window. The air smelled like liquor and smoke and bath soap. A portable bath occupied one corner of the room, sodden footprints tracking across the carpet. Christopher reclined on the unmade bed, half propped on a haphazard stack of pillows, a bottle of brandy clasped negligently in his fingers. His incurious gaze moved to Beatri and held, his eyes becoming alert. He was clad in a pair of fawn-colored trousers, only partially fastened, and…nothing more. His body was a long golden arc on the bed, lean and complexly muscled. Scars marred the sun-browned skin in places…there was a ragged triangular shape where a bayonet had pierced his shoulder, a liberal scattering of marks from shrapnel, a small circular depression on his side that must have been caused by a bullet. Slowly Christopher levered himself upward and placed the bottle on the bedside table. Half leaning on the edge of the mattress, his bare feet braced on the floor, he regarded Beatrix without expression. The locks of his hair were still damp, darkened to antique gold. How broad his shoulders were, their sturdy slopes flowing into the powerful lines of his arms. “Why are you here?” His voice sounded rusty from disuse. Somehow Beatrix managed to drag her mesmerized gaze away from the glinting fleece on his chest. “I came to return Albert,” she said. “He appeared at Ramsay House today. He says you’ve been neglecting him. And that you haven’t taken him on any walks lately.” “Has he? I had no idea he was so loose-tongued.

Turn. I want to look at you," he ordered. "Why?" "Because you are beautiful and I want you." Dear God. He spoke like he moved: quick, purposeful. His delivery made everything sound true and right and... 'sensible.' Which was dangerous indeed, as the last thing this was meant to be was sensible. He'd undressed with startling alacrity while she was facing her door, and she hardly knew where to look first. She knew he meant it, because she could see in his fierce eyes and the swift rise and fall of his shoulders, and his hard cock, thick and large and curving up toward his belly, how much he wanted her. And he stared, drinking her in, and dear God, her knees went weaker still at the look in his eyes. She wanted to tell him, too, that he was beautiful, but it wasn't quite the right word. It seemed inadequate and perhaps not exactly true. He was overwhelmingly new to her, alien, and astoundingly... 'male'... his skin very fair, his body spare, all hard, lean muscle, his chest furred with dark hair, a trail of it following the seam of his ribs where his cock curved upward against his belly up from its nest of curling hair. His small, hard buttocks were almost comically white and muscular. She saw a few scars scattered over him. He saved her from the onslaught of sensations and impressions and from having to make a statement when he pulled her against his bare body. The feeling of his skin against hers, her hard nipples brushing his, was extraordinary; his skin was hot; he smelled wonderful and strange, of smoke and musk and something she was sure was uniquely his. He didn't want coy. She'd claimed she wasn't. And yet it was counter to her nature to let momentum take her, to surrender. She struggled with it, and he felt the tension in her body. "It's all right," he murmured into her ear, his breath, his voice, erotic, so persuasive, the voice of ultimate safety and ultimate danger. "I have you. 'Shhh,' now, Genevieve.

He gazed up at the spot where her window had looked out over the fields. Smoke had billowed out through the hole in the roof. He could smell it. Echoes of gunshots still hung in the trees. He reached up and touched the scar on his head. He hadn’t fallen through the floorboards like they said.

But Tilo had crept up on him, and become a kind of compulsion, an addiction almost. Addiction has its own mnemonics – skin, smell, the length of the loved one’s fingers. In Tilo’s case it was the slant of her eyes, the shape of her mouth, the almost ­invisible scar that slightly altered the symmetry of her lips and made her look defiant even when she did not mean to, the way her nostrils flared, announcing her displeasure even before her eyes did. The way she held her shoulders. The way she sat on the pot stark naked and smoked cigarettes. So many years of marriage, the fact that she was not young any more – and did nothing to pretend otherwise – didn’t change the way he felt. Because it had to do with more than all that. It was the haughtiness (despite the question mark over her ‘stock’, as his mother had not hesitated to put it). It had to do with the way she lived, in the country of her own skin. A country that issued no visas and seemed to have no consulates.

The woman didn’t need a name. She was different, and different was a scar. People always remembered scars.

Just scarred—the strongest of hearts always are. The earth and ocean don’t thank the sun for its light and warmth. The sun doesn’t thank them for their companionship. So, don’t thank me. Don’t ever think you have to thank anyone. Because that’s what we are to each other. Two beings that give as much as we receive and everything you need, I will always give you.

The coldhearted Dragon Lady uses her sexuality to deceive and destroy. The Spicy Sexpot’s curves and broken English take the smoke out of her fire. The Bad Arab is judged by the sex she supposedly doesn’t have and the sensuality she is cut off from feeling.

Now light burned through that scar tissue, streaks of red piercing the mottled flesh. It formed a design—five phases of the moon over the top of his shoulders, and a spear of smoke down the center of his back.

To these children, the door William has just come through is a portal. Being shoved through it means a trip to hell where only demons come to visit and the man before them fits that description; his deep, hard eyes frame his long, winding scar and behind him, flames rise as the smell of smoke and charring meat waft into the room.

We all have scars, Layla. They don’t define us; they make us stronger. They remind us that we survived whatever tried to hurt us. They tell a story about where we’ve been, but they don’t determine where we’re going. We get to decide that. So, decide right now, are you going to let your scars hold you back or are you going to embrace them as part of what makes you beautiful?

These are the things I learned about being a parent, while not actually being a parent: That whatever you did would probably be wrong. If you were cruel or dismissive or neglectful, you would leave scars upon your charge. But if you were supportive and loving, encouraging and praising them for even their smallest achievements—getting out of bed on time, say, or managing not to smoke for a whole day—it would simply ruin them in a different way.

Cedric sucked in a slow breath, an eerie calm settling over him. “Who did this to you?

It happened as it always did, swallowing her swiftly and completely. Intense. Painful. Quick, vivid colors spun beneath her eyelids. Sounds were sharp inside her skull. Fire shot up through her bones. She may have been screaming and she wouldn’t have known. There was smoke in her nose, thick and black, and she couldn’t breathe. It stung her eyes and licked at her skin. Wood and metal crashed down as skin blistered and popped and she knew this wasn’t her, knew it was someone else, someone with a bigger body, bigger boots and darker jeans, and big ol’ hands with scars on the fingers. Men’s hands. Nails blunt and dirty with oil and grease and burning and- The cars were on fire. Paper burned and curled and rags ignited, the cement floor pockmarked by flash fires. Meat withered in her nose and she realized it was her. Him. Dancing embers blackened and burned bone. He screamed and she hoped she was not. He writhed and she really hoped she was not. He was dying, dead, and-

Al tended the bar at night. He’d been in the merchant marine and ate with a fat clunky thumb holding down his plate, as if he were afraid the whole place might pitch and yaw and send his dinner flying. He was dwarfish and looked like an abandoned sculpture, a forgotten intention. His upper body was a slablike mass, a plinth upon which his head rested; he had a chiseled nose and jaw, a hack-job scar of a mouth; his hands were thick and stubby, more like paws than anything prehensile. Sitting back behind the bar, smoking Pall Malls, he seemed petrified, the current shape of his body achieved by erosion, his face cut by clumsy strokes and blows. His eyes, though, were soft and blue, always wet and weepy with rheum, and when you looked at Al, you had the disorienting sense of something trapped, something fluid and human caught inside the gray stone vessel of his gargoyle body, gazing out through those eyes. He was my only real neighbor. At closing he’d collect the glasses, wipe down the bottles, shut the blinds, and go to sleep on the bar. In the morning he’d fold his blankets and stow them away in a cardboard box.

They had entombed her in darkness and iron. She slept, for they had forced her to—had wafted curling, sweet smoke through the cleverly hidden airholes in the slab of iron above. Around. Beneath. A coffin built by an ancient queen to trap the sun inside. Draped with iron, encased in it, she slept. Dreamed. Drifted through seas, through darkness, through fire. A princess of nothing. Nameless. The princess sang to the darkness, to the flame. And they sang back. There was no beginning or end or middle. Only the song, and the sea, and the iron sarcophagus that had become her bower. Until they were gone. Until blinding light flooded the slumbering, warm dark. Until the wind swept in, crisp and scented with rain. She could not feel it on her face. Not with the death-mask still chained to it. Her eyes cracked open. The light burned away all shape and color after so long in the dim depths. But a face appeared before her—above her. Peering over the lid that had been hauled aside. Dark, flowing hair. Moon-pale skin. Lips as red as blood. The ancient queen’s mouth parted in a smile. Teeth as white as bone. “You’re awake. Good.” Lovely and cold, it was a voice that could devour the stars. From somewhere, from the blinding light, rough and scar-flecked hands reached into the coffin. Grasped the chains binding her. The queen’s huntsman; the queen’s blade. He hauled the princess upright, her body a distant, aching thing. She did not want to slide back into this body. Struggled against it, clawing for the flame and the darkness that now ebbed away from her like a morning tide. But the huntsman yanked her closer to that cruel, beautiful face watching with a spider’s smile. And he held her still as that ancient queen purred, “Let’s begin.

Traci Louise Fishman picked at the steering wheel some more, then gave me the Special Secret look again. Like there was something else I’d never heard before, and something Traci had never been able to tell, and now she wanted to. “You want me to tell you something really weird?” I looked at her. “Last year, we were up in my room, smoking. My room is on the second floor and in the back, so I can open the window and no one knows.” “Uh-huh.” “We were smoking and talking and Mimi said, ‘Watch this,’ and she pulled up her shirt and put the hot part of the cigarette on her stomach and held it there.” I sat in the Rabbit, listening to sixteen-year-old Traci Louise Fishman, and my back went cold. “It was so weird I couldn’t even say anything. I just watched, and it seemed like she held it there forever, and I yelled, ‘That’s crazy, Mimi, you’ll have a scar,’ and she said she didn’t care, and then she pushed down her pants and there were these two dark marks just above her hair down there and she said, ‘Pain gives us meaning, Traci,’ and then she took a real deep drag on the cigarette and got the tip glowing bright red and then she did it again.” Traci Louise Fishman’s eyes were round and bulging. She was scared, as if telling me these things she had been keeping secret for so long was in some way giving them reality for the first time, and the reality was a shameful, frightful thing. I ran my tongue across the backs of my teeth and thought about Mimi Warren and couldn’t shake the cold feeling. “Did she do things like that often?

But the fire made it ugly, like everything it touches - even the memories went up in smoke.

On May 16, 1925, a young reverend from Berwyn named Henry C. Hoover arranged to have deputy sheriffs raid Capone’s big Cicero casino, the Hawthorne Smoke Shop. Shortly after raiders burst in, Capone arrived wearing pajamas and an overcoat, unshaven and surly. Rarely rising before noon, he’d been summoned from bed at the hotel next door. When he tried to force his way inside, a real estate broker turned deputy blocked his way. “What do you think this is,” the broker asked, “a party?” “It ought to be my party,” Capone snarled. “I own the place.” The broker took a harder look at Capone, saw the long scar, and bid him, “Come on in.” Another raider brought Capone upstairs, where the men were dismantling and carting off gaming equipment. Capone claimed he was being picked on, then said ominously, “This is the last raid you will ever make.” Reverend Hoover watched the man in pajamas clean out the cash register and asked him who he was. “Al Brown,” Capone shot back, invoking his preferred alias, “if that is good enough for you.” “Muttering and grumbling, Capone went out,” the reverend recalled, “and disappeared down the stairs. Some time later . . . he re-appeared, neatly dressed and shaven and clothed in an entirely different spirit.” “Reverend,” he asked, “can’t we get together?” “What do you mean, Mr. Capone?” “I give to churches,” Capone said, “and I give to charity . . . if you will let up on me in Cicero, I will withdraw from Stickney.

My friend Bob Forrest is a spiritual person. He doesn’t go to church and he doesn’t talk about God and he doesn’t go do charity events on weekends, but he’ll sit and talk for hours to a guy in jail who can’t stop smoking crack. That’s curing Bob of his spiritual malady, because he’s willing to do something that’s not really for him, it’s for this other guy. He’s not doing it with the expectation of getting anything out of it, but as a by-product, he is.

You can't remove my scars or rewrite the past that haunts me. Just hold me tight and tell me everything's going to be okay.

Then, with as gentle a touch as he could manage, he placed two fingers on the side of her chin and turned her face toward him.

She let out a frustrated huff. And then a hand was resting on her shoulder, a warmth seeping into her that felt so different from the boiling air around them. That familiar feeling in her chest throbbed, as if her body recognized his touch. “Let me help,” Cedric murmured, his breath caressing the shell of her ear. “Just tell me what to do.

Because there, armored arms crossed tight over his chest, lips pressed into a hard line, was Sir Cedric Thorne.

I reached into my left pocket for a pack of cigarettes, drew one out, held it between my index and middle finger. I wasn’t addicted to cigarettes, but to the feeling of holding it, lighting it up, letting it burn—letting myself burn. The smoke rose, curling and twisting, as if painting her face in the air, delicate yet fleeting. Her long hair flowed with the wind in those ephemeral wisps, only to disappear before I could hold on to them. So I would take another puff, summon her back, breathe her into existence for just a moment more.

He would not die today. She would make sure of it. And so, she did.

Start where all stories should,” they said. “At the beginning.

And if their mouthpiece says unity is the name of this game, well then, slap my arse and call me ‘brother.’ ” Cedric

Leona stumbled forward, then whirled on Elyria. “You!” Elyria wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Me.

It would take a lot more than a striking face, shimmering green eyes, and pretty purple hair to get him to stray from his mission— and his morals. He frowned at the specificity of the image that came into his mind. He certainly wasn’t referring to anyone in particular.

She scoffed. “I’m not afraid of you.” He looked up from where he’d begun tracing the lines on her hand and met her glowing green stare. “Maybe you should be.” “Maybe you need to stop being afraid of yourself.

Xaroth rubbed his snout as smoke flew out his nostrils. “Let me tell you this, Moonberry.” He intoned, in a voice that made my blood run cold. “The path I tread is one paved with the bones of those who dared defy me. Each scar on my scales is a testament to the countless souls who have fallen before me, crushed under the weight of my wrath.” He paused, his eyes narrowing into slits, a cruel smile playing on his lips. “You may see me as a tyrant, a creature of unrelenting pride, but know this: my actions are driven by a relentless pursuit of power. They are the manifestations of a soul that revels in the destruction and despair I leave in my wake.” Xaroth leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper, each word laced with malice. “I have watched kingdoms burn, their glories turned to ashes. I have seen comrades, bound by honor and duty, fall in the heat of battle, their dying screams a symphony to my ears. The thrill of victory is a heady intoxication, one that fuels the darkness within me.

And the bloody blade Evander had just thrust into his sister’s back.

A young guy walked up to him with an exaggerated swagger, his jeans riding low, his CK underwear showing - or fake ones, an a replacing the e in Klein. "You really the Baptist's cousin?" the guy said, squinting at him, giving Joshua a onceover like Malik had. If anything, he resembled both guards, just with a neck. He was also younger and skinnier, with a nose ring and a nest of short dreads flopping over his eyes, the back and sides closely cropped. "Yes," Joshua replied, glancing at the bullseye tattoo circling what looked like a tracheotomy scar. The guy touched the base of his throat, noticing the attention. "You're tall like him, got that crazy look too, like you've smoked too many Bible blunts." "Izzy!" Nico yelled, looking horrified. Izzy sniggered. "I mean no harm," he said, his smile saying otherwise.

Wise men know that even the dead have a stake in the living. They might be physically gone, but their actions and will remain in the scars and pain they leave behind.

That’s—” I stopped mid-sentence as my eyes lowered to Asar’s reflection. It was a blacked-out silhouette, smoke pouring from it, as if seen through the depths of nightfire. Like he was burning eternal. The only visible feature was one bright white eye—his right, the opposite side of his scars.

Olyndor Oleander

Fairy fucker,” he muttered, distinctly not under his breath. “All his morals tossed in the gutter for a soft piece of fae ass.” In a flash, Cedric was on his feet.

To her. And amidst those shimmering threads of light, one glowed golden. “Is it working?” Cedric asked, something like astonishment in his voice.

Elyria,” he murmured into her ear, his voice low. “That’s enough.” She didn’t react. He lifted his hand. Paused. Drew it back. Then, with as gentle a touch as he could manage, he placed two fingers on the side of her chin and turned her face toward him. Magic sparked where their skin met, sending a shock zipping through Cedric. Elyria too, from the sudden way her arm fell, her shadow dissipating into nothing.

The Bad Halloween: A Crazies Night Chronicle by Stewart Stafford I'm Rich—ambulance medic on Crazies Night, Demented chariot driver in the mediverse, Skeleton crew for swarms of ailing impostors, Our dashboard crucifix, buffeting every curse. Jittery, side-burned Jeff riding shotgun, I tease his grumbling about missing fun: "A toast with your Pumpkin Spice Latte! Breakfast on me when our shift is done." Behind us, a female living portrait groaned— Drunk or high, headfirst, she kissed the road. Mona Lisa frame unmounted for treatment, delirious spoilers dropped for The Da Vinci Code! Death's Reaper stood daring us in our path; graveyard shift, centre line, gleaming scythe. Brakes jammed, sirens blared, the prank waned— This gothic vigilante traffic cop waved us by! We dropped Patient Moaner at the hospital, Jeff smoked, and I ate canteen Colcannon, Our "bat signal" crackled, flashed in the cab: "Cosplay brawl at the Hotel Shannon." We drove off for more Boo-Boo Bus Bedlam to hit our Gotham's streets and tend the injured. Catherine wheel jack-o-lantern through windscreen; The Pumpkin Bomber’s cackle went unheard. Ears temporarily-deafened, thumbs up given; Faces, hands, arms burned—scarred medics. Flying glass cuts on our cheeks and necks: Carers now mummified patients: sideline critics. The first cracks of dawn chase shadows away; A Grand Grimoire yielding to Grey's Anatomy, Our carriage—the repair yard's hollow gourd, All-Saints sunrise feast to shed All Hallows' agony. On the Lord of Death's night, we didn't die: Weary defiance met coffee and pumpkin pie. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

Cedric’s cheeks warmed as he had to begrudgingly admit to himself that she had not only saved him but had done so with a level of skill and precision that left him feeling . . . small.

Fyre wyrm.

Elyria sighed at the distinct lack of creativity in his insults.

The voice that answered was not hers. “I am death and retribution

He hadn’t endured. He’d been dragged out of the darkness by someone stronger

I am not your enemy, you absolute plonker.

Cedric’s heart sank with the knowledge that this had only been the beginning. And much worse was yet to come.

His friend was always on his case about his bleeding heart.

Some champion he was. Havensreach’s finest, afraid of heights.

Oh, I am always well stocked when it comes to snacks.

A Momentary Flicker by Stewart Stafford Keeper of pristine candlelight, In corrupted hourglass time, Chest-pumped at your "yield"— So why asset-strip mine? You claim we shed virginity together, A lecherous faux-naif purloins truth, My age will be the years you get— That collar shall be your noose. Your crimes are beyond absolution, Your extant sextant for baleful stars, Fevered pleas and penitent sighs, To a confessional's hidden bars. So why scalpel-slit a seeping scar? Karma totals defrocked degradation, A besmeared, hacked-up oil painting— Damnation's inferno predation. Your words, woven with deception, Vanish like smoke from a flame. From shaded rebirth, I set forth. I reclaim my dawn, my light, my name. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

Your story is not a kind one,” Brigitte says, kneading my hands softly between her own. “But though you’ve suffered your own fire, child, you won’t always smell of smoke. And yes, it may have burned you,” she tells me, and I lift my gaze. “But scars are powerful things, because they show your resilience. So rise from your ashes, my dear. Do not crumble alongside them.

Azriel was nothing short of beautiful. Even with those scarred hands and the shadows that flowed from him like smoke