Sound Of Waves Crashing Quotes

The ocean is far below us, but the waves crash so loudly, sound close enough to drown us.

The sea breeze blew in, stirring up the smell of the pool and blood, mixing with it. The sound of waves crashing carried on.

I close my eyes and listen to the ocean. I'm thinking about sailing, to England or maybe France. The way the wind would feel on my face and the sound of his voice screaming my name through his laughter. The waves would crash like applause. God, I remember when I used to be afraid of the ocean.

Though they live far from the coast, they retain a great fascination and passion for the ocean. The sound of crashing waves, the smell of salt air, it affects them deeply and has inspired many of their lovliest songs. There is one that tells of this love, if you want to hear it.

Why are you such a manwhoring asshole?” I asked, my face inches from his. “Why are you such a cockblocking priss?” he asked, and when I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought, the fucker kissed me. Kissed me. Placed his lips on mine and kissed me. Under the moon and the stars, with the sounds of the waves crashing and the crickets cricketing.

Maybe in my next life, I'll be a wave in the ocean, and you'll be a mountain, and we'll spend years and years brushing up against each other. You'll shift so painfully slowly, and some days I'll crash right into you and other days I'll approach gently, licking your sides. That sounds like us, doesn't it?

The ocean pulsed outside our window. The sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below usually calmed me down, but the fear and chaos that were tangled in my mind made that an impossibility.

The deep roar of the ocean. The break of waves on farther shores that thought can find. The silent thunders of the deep. And from among it, voices calling, and yet not voices, humming trillings, wordlings, and half-articulated songs of thought. Greetings, waves of greetings, sliding back down into the inarticulate, words breaking together. A crash of sorrow on the shores of Earth. Waves of joy on--where? A world indescribably found, indescribably arrived at, indescribably wet, a song of water. A fugue of voices now, clamoring explanations, of a disaster unavertable, a world to be destroyed, a surge of helplessness, a spasm of despair, a dying fall, again the break of words. And then the fling of hope, the finding of a shadow Earth in the implications of enfolded time, submerged dimensions, the pull of parallels, the deep pull, the spin of will, the hurl and split of it, the fight. A new Earth pulled into replacement, the dolphins gone. Then stunningly a single voice, quite clear. "This bowl was brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell." And then the sound of long, heavy, perfectly gray bodies rolling away into an unknown fathomless deep, quietly giggling.

Alex: OK, that sounds like a challenge! Well firstly, I would have brought you to a hotel along the coast so that your suite would have the best sea view in the hotel. You could fall asleep listening to the waves crashing against the rocks, I would sprinkle the bed with red rose petals and have candles lit all around the room, I would have your favorite CD playing quietly in the background. But I wouldn’t propose to you there. I would bring you to where there was a huge crowd of people so they could all gasp when I got down on one knee and proposed. Or something like that. Note I have italicized all important buzz words. Rosie: Oh. Alex: Oh? That’s all you can say? One word for the most important night of our lives?

Malibu: With sounds of waves crashing, and the ocean at the doorstep, you feel like you are hours away from civilization. And with L.A. traffic, YOU ARE.

White-crested waves crash on the shore. The masts sway violently, every which way. In the gray sky the gulls are circling like white flakes. Rain squalls blow past like gray slanting sails, and blue gaps open in the sky. The air brightens. A cold silvery evening. The moon is overhead, and down below, in the water; and all around it-a wide frame of old, hammered, scaly silver. Etched on the silver-silent black fishing boats, tiny black needles of masts, little black men casting invisible lines into the silver. And the only sounds are the occasional plashing of an oar, the creaking of an oarlock, the springlike leap and flip-flop of a fish. ("The North")

Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder beyond the horizon.

There is a mirror across from me, and I check my reflection in it before heading home. Despite the bone-deep fatigue and the growing fear and frustration, I look…fine. Da always said he’d teach me to play cards. Said I’d take the bank, the way things never reach my eyes. There should be something—a tell, a crease between my eyes, or a tightness in my jaw. I’m too good at this. Behind my reflection I see the painting of the sea, slanting as if the waves crashing on the rocks have hit with enough force to tip the picture. I turn and straighten it. The frame makes a faint rattling sound when I do. Everything in this place seems to be falling apart.

Blow on, ye death fraught whirlwinds! blow, Around the rocks, and rifted caves; Ye demons of the gulf below! I hear you, in the troubled waves. High on this cliff, which darkness shrouds In night's impenetrable clouds, My solitary watch I keep, And listen, while the turbid deep Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole. Eternal world of waters, hail! Within thy caves my Lover lies; And day and night alike shall fail Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes. Along this wild untrodden coast, Heap'd by the gelid' hand of frost; Thro' this unbounded waste of seas, Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze; Mine was the choice, in this terrific form, To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm. Yes! I am chang'd - My heart, my soul, Retain no more their former glow. Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll, I watch the bark, in murmurs low, (While darker low'rs the thick'ning' gloom) To lure the sailor to his doom; Soft from some pile of frozen snow I pour the syren-song of woe; Like the sad mariner's expiring cry, As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die. Then, while the dark and angry deep Hangs his huge billows high in air ; And the wild wind with awful sweep, Howls in each fitful swell - beware! Firm on the rent and crashing mast, I lend new fury to the blast; I mark each hardy cheek grow pale, And the proud sons of courage fail; Till the torn vessel drinks the surging waves, Yawns the disparted main, and opes its shelving graves. When Vengeance bears along the wave The spell, which heav'n and earth appals; Alone, by night, in darksome cave, On me the gifted wizard calls. Above the ocean's boiling flood Thro' vapour glares the moon in blood: Low sounds along the waters die, And shrieks of anguish fill the' sky; Convulsive powers the solid rocks divide, While, o'er the heaving surge, the embodied spirits glide. Thrice welcome to my weary sight, Avenging ministers of Wrath! Ye heard, amid the realms of night, The spell that wakes the sleep of death. Where Hecla's flames the snows dissolve, Or storms, the polar skies involve; Where, o'er the tempest-beaten wreck, The raging winds and billows break; On the sad earth, and in the stormy sea, All, all shall shudd'ring own your potent agency. To aid your toils, to scatter death, Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force, When the keen north-wind's freezing breath Spreads desolation in its course, My soul within this icy sea, Fulfils her fearful destiny. Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait To lead the victims to their fate; With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy, And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy.

Mostly when I pray, I picture God holding my heart up very gently to his ear, like it’s one of those big, fancy seashells with an ocean sound inside it. I’ve got a thousand tiny oceans inside me. And I think God listens carefully to every crashing wave, all the fears and hopes. Even if he doesn’t answer every single prayer, I think he keeps my heart safe.

Aww, the sound of waves crashing along the ocean side and spraying back up to touch the wind only for a moment, then to fall back down becoming the ocean once more...

A harsh crack followed the rumble of thunder, a lightning strike. With that, the other musicians began to play, bringing in the tinkling sounds of light rain, the deeper thrum of thicker droplets. The others played the crashing waves, the lapping of water against a nonexistent shore. All around us were the sounds of water, dripping from faucets, gushing from waterfalls.

The lightning continued to strike, silent and lovely, even after he stilled. The sounds of the world came pouring back in, his breathing as ragged as the hiss of the crashing waves while he brushed lazy kisses to her temple, her nose, her mouth. Aelin drew her eyes away from the beauty of their magic, the beauty of them, and found his face to be the most beautiful of all. She

My dearest, I write this letter by candlelight as you lie sleeping. And though I can't hear the soft sounds of your slumber, I know you are there, and soon I will be lying next to you again as I always have. And I will feel your warmth and your comfort, and your breaths will slowly guide me to the place where I dream of you and the wonderful man you are. I see the flame beside me and it reminds me of another fire, (with me in your soft clothes and you in your jeans) of me and you. I knew then we would always be together. My heart had been captured, and I knew inside that it had always been yours. Who was I to question a love that rode on shooting stars and roared like crashing waves? For that is what is was between us then and that is what it is today. You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together. You have something inside you, something beautiful and strong. Kindness, that's what I see when I look at you, that's what everyone sees. Kindness. You are the most forgiving and peaceful man I know. God is with you, He must be, for you are the closest thing to an angel that I've ever seen. We have lived a lifetime most couples never know, and yet, when I look at you, I am frightened by the knowledge that all this will be ending soon. (For we both know my prognosis and what it will mean to us.) I see your tears and I worry more about you than I do about me, because I fear the pain I know you will go through. There are no words to express my sorrow for this, and I am at a loss for words. So I love you so deeply, so incredibly much. Know that I love you, that I always will, and that no matter what happens, know I have led the greatest life possible. My life with you. I love you. I love you now as I write this, and I love you now as you read this. And I am so sorry if I am not able to tell you. I love you deeply. You are, and always have been, my dream.

Ride!' went the call, and the individuals of the troop became a single lurching, streaming mass of horseflesh pounding toward the trees. The first of the men reached the tree line moments before the sound became a roar, the crack and crash of stones, of huge granite boulders large enough to smash into other parts of the cliff and send them driving downwards. The thundering sound, echoing off the walls of the mountain, was frightening and panicked the horses almost more than the boulders at their heels. It was as though the whole surface of the cliff loosened, dissolved into a liquid surface: a rain of stone, a rolling wave of stone.

At some point in the night she had a dream. Or it was possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream? She was alone among the rocks on a dark coast beside the sea. The water surged upward and fell back languidly, and in the distance she heard surf breaking slowly on a sandy shore. It was comforting to be this close to the surface of the ocean and gaze at the intimate nocturnal details of its swelling and ebbing. And as she listened to the faraway breakers rolling up onto the beach, she became aware of another sound entwined with the intermittent crash of waves: a vast horizontal whisper across the bossom of the sea, carrying an ever-repeated phrase, regular as a lighthouse flashing: Dawn will be breaking soon. She listened a long time: again and again the scarcely audible words were whispered across the moving water. A great weight was being lifted slowly from her; little by little her happiness became more complete, and she awoke. Then she lay for a few minutes marveling the dream, and once again fell asleep.

A sound from upstairs sends my thought process reeling. It’s just a small noise, perhaps the sound of your feet brushing the crimson carpet in the bedroom? It’s not loud or menacing, but it sends a wave of adrenaline crashing through me. You’re on your way!

Have you lost all faith?” “Yes,” she whispered. “Good,” he replied. “Then I have one last task for you. I’ve been to that planet of yours, and I think I’d like it best if the only sounds were the wind in the dead trees and the waves crashing upon empty shores.

Excerpt from "The Long Road from Perdition" for the day: "...I've always been drawn to the ocean. It is here that I now feel peaceful and can lose my thoughts while immersed in the deafening sounds of waves crashing around me. The spray and mist of the ocean's past seem to be a living, breathing yet wounded animal. The fury of the waves never settled and the spew of the foam touched all that dared to sit near it. There is no reason to flinch as the waves spray and crash against the shore. It is a natural progression I have learned to endure. However, it is the rescinding of the waves and fluid release of fury that I struggle to understand and coexist with peacefully. I hope one day to master it.

SOPHOMORE YEAR Before he was mine and I was his... "You weren't in the lunchroom today," Jack said, coming up behind me at my locker. "Jules says you're never in the cafeteria on Wednesdays." I tried to calm the flush to my cheeks before I turned around to face him. My crush on Jack was getting ridiculous. Pretty soon I would be nonverbal.Just because he noticed,for the first time, that I wasn't at lunch,it didn't mean anything. I tried to keep my tone light. "Sounds like you guys had a very intriguing conversation." "Oh,we did." Jack fell into step beside me,and we walked down the hallway at a slower pace than everyone around us. "She said you avoid the cafeteria on Wednesdays.And she said you like me." I heard myself gasp,and I came to a stop. I'm gonna kill Jules, I thought. "So,is it true?" Jack said. I could barely hear him with the crashing waves in my ears.I started to turn away,embarrassed,but Jack stepped sideways so he was in front of me, and there was nowhere else I could look. "Is it true?" he asked again. "Yes.I hate hot-dog Wednesdays, so I don't go to the lunchroom.It's true." "That's not what I meant,Becks." "I know." "Tell me.Is it true? Do you like me?" I tried to roll my eyes,and promptly forgot how.So I just looked at the ceiling. "You know I like you. You're one of my best friends." "Friends," Jack repeated. "Of course." "Good friends?" I nodded. "More than friends?" I didn't say anything. I didn't move. Jack reached toward my hand and tugged gently on my fingers. The movement was so small,I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't felt it. He leaned forward and said, "Tell me, friend.Is there more for us?" I looked into his eyes. "There's everything for us.

That the deaf man cannot hear the sound of the crashing ocean waves, or the blind man cannot see the beauty of an autumn sky, does not mean the sea and the sky do not exist. So, like the blind man, close your eyes. Like the deaf man, block your ears; go inside and realize…that which you seek has been there, within you, all along. This is when the blind will see and the deaf will hear.

She’d never seen the ocean before. It was so vast compared to the rivers she’d seen. The sand resembled brown sugar. The seagulls leaped up and down as if they were at the ends of yo-yos. The waves made the sound of someone biting into an apple. When they crashed, they were a hundred thousand chorus girls raising up their dresses at once. And then the water receded again like the train of a jilted bride walking off into the distance.

This afternoon, being on Fair Haven Hill, I heard the sound of a saw, and soon after from the Cliff saw two men sawing down a noble pine beneath, about forty rods off. I resolved to watch it till it fell, the last of a dozen or more which were left when the forest was cut and for fifteen years have waved in solitary majesty over the sprout-land. I saw them like beavers or insects gnawing at the trunk of this noble tree, the diminutive manikins with their cross-cut saw which could scarcely span it. It towered up a hundred feet as I afterward found by measurement, one of the tallest probably in the township and straight as an arrow, but slanting a little toward the hillside, its top seen against the frozen river and the hills of Conantum. I watch closely to see when it begins to move. Now the sawers stop, and with an axe open it a little on the side toward which it leans, that it may break the faster. And now their saw goes again. Now surely it is going; it is inclined one quarter of the quadrant, and, breathless, I expect its crashing fall. But no, I was mistaken; it has not moved an inch; it stands at the same angle as at first. It is fifteen minutes yet to its fall. Still its branches wave in the wind, as it were destined to stand for a century, and the wind soughs through its needles as of yore; it is still a forest tree, the most majestic tree that waves over Musketaquid. The silvery sheen of the sunlight is reflected from its needles; it still affords an inaccessible crotch for the squirrel’s nest; not a lichen has forsaken its mast-like stem, its raking mast,—the hill is the hulk. Now, now’s the moment! The manikins at its base are fleeing from their crime. They have dropped the guilty saw and axe. How slowly and majestic it starts! as it were only swayed by a summer breeze, and would return without a sigh to its location in the air. And now it fans the hillside with its fall, and it lies down to its bed in the valley, from which it is never to rise, as softly as a feather, folding its green mantle about it like a warrior, as if, tired of standing, it embraced the earth with silent joy, returning its elements to the dust again. But hark! there you only saw, but did not hear. There now comes up a deafening crash to these rocks , advertising you that even trees do not die without a groan. It rushes to embrace the earth, and mingle its elements with the dust. And now all is still once more and forever, both to eye and ear. I went down and measured it. It was about four feet in diameter where it was sawed, about one hundred feet long. Before I had reached it the axemen had already divested it of its branches. Its gracefully spreading top was a perfect wreck on the hillside as if it had been made of glass, and the tender cones of one year’s growth upon its summit appealed in vain and too late to the mercy of the chopper. Already he has measured it with his axe, and marked off the mill-logs it will make. And the space it occupied in upper air is vacant for the next two centuries. It is lumber. He has laid waste the air. When the fish hawk in the spring revisits the banks of the Musketaquid, he will circle in vain to find his accustomed perch, and the hen-hawk will mourn for the pines lofty enough to protect her brood. A plant which it has taken two centuries to perfect, rising by slow stages into the heavens, has this afternoon ceased to exist. Its sapling top had expanded to this January thaw as the forerunner of summers to come. Why does not the village bell sound a knell? I hear no knell tolled. I see no procession of mourners in the streets, or the woodland aisles. The squirrel has leaped to another tree; the hawk has circled further off, and has now settled upon a new eyrie, but the woodman is preparing [to] lay his axe at the root of that also.

EVERYWHERE I TURNED, EVERYWHERE I went, everybody had something to say about love. Mothers, fathers, teachers, singers, musicians, poets, writers, friends. It was like the air. It was like the ocean. It was like the sun. It was like the leaves on a tree in summer. It was like the rain that broke the drought. It was the soft sound of the water flowing through a stream. And it was the sound of the crashing waves against the shore in a storm. Love was why we fought all our battles. Love was what we lived and died for. Love was what we dreamed of as we slept. Love was the air we wanted to breathe in when we woke to greet the day. Love was a torch you carried to lead you out of darkness. Love took you out of exile and carried you to a country called Belonging.

She tried to recall the cold, the silence, and that precious feeling of owning the world, of being twenty years old and having her whole life ahead of her, of making love slowly and calmly, drunk with the scent of the forest and their love, without a past, without suspecting the future, with just the incredible richness of that present moment in which they stared at each other, smelled each other, kissed each other, and explored each other's bodies, wrapped in the whisper of the wind among the trees and the sound of the nearby waves breaking against the rocks at the foot of the cliff, exploding in a crash of pungent surf, and the two of them embracing underneath a single poncho like Siamese twins, laughing and swearing this night would last forever, that they were the only ones in the whole world who had discovered love.

And Tenar listened to the sea, a few yards below the cave mouth, crashing and sucking and booming on the rocks, and the thunder of it down the beach eastward for miles. Over and over and over it made the same sounds, yet never quite the same. It never rested. On all the shores of all the lands in all the world, it heaved itself in these unresting waves, and never ceased, and never was still. The desert, the mountains: they stood still. They did not cry out forever in a great, dull voice. The sea spoke forever, but its language was foreign to her. She did not understand.

It is a strange, nonintuitive fact of existence that photons of light have no color, sound waves no sound, olfactory molecules no odors. As James Le Fanu has put it, “While we have the overwhelming impression that the greenness of the trees and the blueness of the sky are streaming through our eyes as through an open window, yet the particles of light impacting on the retina are colourless, just as the waves of sound impacting on the eardrum are silent and scent molecules have no smell. They are all invisible, weightless, subatomic particles of matter travelling through space.” All the richness of life is created inside your head. What you see is not what is but what your brain tells you it is, and that’s not the same thing at all. Consider a bar of soap. Has it ever struck you that soap lather is always white no matter what color the soap is? That isn’t because the soap somehow changes color when it is moistened and rubbed. Molecularly, it’s exactly as it was before. It’s just that the foam reflects light in a different way. You get the same effect with crashing waves on a beach—greeny-blue water, white foam—and lots of other phenomena. That is because color isn’t a fixed reality but a perception.

He had his eyes closed and rocked himself so much that everyone thought he would soon crash to the ground. And then it happened. He crashed to the ground. Surprised, he lay on the ground on his side, not sure what had happened, looking around. Next he jumped up and listened to Matica’s singing again, starting to rock himself once more. His eyes closed slowly, his beak opened. And then he crashed to the ground a second time. This time he kept lying down, spreading his free wing up into the air and waving it to the tune of the melody. Strange sounds came out of his beak. It was a grunt but more than a grunt, as if he was really enjoying himself, as if he would follow Matica’s words and would sing or hum as well.

Then we stop. "¡Down!" Coco Liso almost yells. We crouch. Pick a bush. I hold my breath. It sounds like an ocean wave is approaching the shore. A loud crash. Then it keeps crashing, but softer and softer until we can't hear it anymore. Shhhhhh. It quiets down like sand absorbing water, fizzling, "Car," people whisper. ¿A car? ¿That was a car? ¡It sounded like the ocean! I look at Carla, who looks at me. Her eyes are big. I smile. She smiles back. I look at Chino, and he nods, doing his lip thing, meaning he thinks it's cool también. We wait until there aren't any noises. We move again. People look back and whisper, "Stay low." I don't have to. Most bushes are taller than me. At most, I tilt my head. Carla has to bend a little, but she's also not that tall. The road is real. We hear it. We crouch from Crayon bush to Cheerleader bush. Past Fuzzies and Lonelies. We stop when we hear a wave forming, nearing, crash - then it fizzles away. I love it. ¡This is the ocean! The asphalt road is the ocean water, the cars the waves.

So . . . for some reason we thought you were the guys assigned to Ms. Lynde’s surveillance. Guess we were mistaken?” “Nope, you got it right,” Kamin said. “We do the night shift. Nice girl. We talk a lot on the way to the gym.” “Oh. Then I guess Agent Wilkins and I are just curious why you two are here instead of with her.” Kamin waved this off. “It’s cool. We did a switcheroo with another cop, see?” “A switcheroo . . . right. Remind me again how that works?” Jack asked. “It’s because she’s got this big date tonight,” Kamin explained. Jack cocked his head. “A date?” Phelps chimed in. “Yeah, you know—with Max-the-investment-banker-she-met-on-the-Bloomingdales-escalator.” “I must’ve missed that one.” “Oh, it’s a great story,” Kamin assured him. “She crashed into him coming off the escalator and when her shopping bag spilled open, he told her he liked her shoes.” “Ah . . . the Meet Cute,” Wilkins said with a grin. Jack threw him a sharp look. “What did you just say?” “You know, the Meet Cute.” Wilkins explained. “In romantic comedies, that’s what they call the moment when the man and woman first meet.” He rubbed his chin, thinking this over. “I don’t know, Jack . . . if she’s had her Meet Cute with another man that does not bode well for you.” Jack nearly did a double take as he tried to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean. Phelps shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t go that far. She’s still on the fence about this guy. He’s got problems keeping his job from intruding on his personal life. But she’s feeling a lot of pressure with Amy’s wedding—she’s only got about ten days left to get a date.” “She’s the maid of honor, see?” Kamin said. Jack stared at all three of them. Their lips were moving and sound was coming out, but it was like they were speaking a different language. Kamin turned to Phelps. “Frankly, I think she should just go with Collin, since he and Richard broke up.” “Yeah, but you heard what she said. She and Collin need to stop using each other as a crutch. It’s starting to interfere with their other relationships.” Unbelievable. Jack ran a hand through his hair, tempted to tear it out. But then he’d have a bald spot to thank Cameron Lynde for, and that would piss him off even more. “Can we get back to the switcheroo part?” “Right, sorry. It was Slonsky’s suggestion. 

There are few sounds at night on the frozen sea besides the roar of the wind. No plants to rustle, no waves to crash upon the shore, no birds to caw. The white owl flies on hushed wings. The white fox walks with silent tread. Even Inuit move as softly as spirits, the snow too hard to yield and crunch beneath our boots. We hear little, but what we do hear is vital: the exploding breath of a surfacing seal, the shift and crack of drifting ice. But in the forest there is always sound. The trees, even in their shrouds of snow, are alive, and their voices--groans, creaks, screams--never cease.

She moved closer to me. I put my arm around her, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. "Thrasius..." "Passia?" She paused, and I realized that she was gathering her courage to speak. "That night, in your cubiculum, I..." I took her hands and held them together between my own. "It's all right, Passia. You don't have to say anything." "You surprised me," she blurted out. "I surprised myself. It took everything I had not to keep you there with me." She leaned forward until our faces were close. "I know." There was nothing to do but kiss her, with all the passion I had harbored from the moment when she first appeared in the kitchen on the day of my arrival. Her lips were soft, and sweet like fresh Iberian honey. I ran my hands along her back and up into the tangle of her hair. My thumbs stroked the flesh of her neck and cheeks, and when they pulled away, her lips. We fell into the sand, twining together our summer-tanned limbs. Our hands roamed up and down the length of each other, slowly removing each article of clothing. I delighted in feeling the way the measure of my passion made my skin tingle with desire from head to toe. "Apicius always says you are the answer to his prayers. I think he is wrong. I think you are the answer to mine," she whispered in my ear before I entered her and we both cried aloud. The sound was washed away by the crash of waves beyond us.

hope you’ll always live near the ocean. No matter what happened to us, your mother and I had the shore. They say that salt water can heal, and it does, and that the rays of the sun can strengthen your bones—no doubt that’s true—and that the sand makes you slow down and savor your steps. If you close your eyes and listen, the sound of the ocean is the most beautiful music ever written. The tempo of the surf as the tide rolls in matches your breath, the sound of the waves as they crash over the rocks sound like the brushes on a snare. It’s like the opening riff to a great piece of jazz. Sometimes I’m standing out there and I hear the blend and I think Ethel Waters is going to rise out of the surf and start wailing. The ocean is God’s orchestra.

I hope you’ll always live near the ocean. No matter what happened to us, your mother and I had the shore. They say that salt water can heal, and it does, and that the rays of the sun can strengthen your bones—no doubt that’s true—and that the sand makes you slow down and savor your steps. If you close your eyes and listen, the sound of the ocean is the most beautiful music ever written. The tempo of the surf as the tide rolls in matches your breath, the sound of the waves as they crash over the rocks sound like the brushes on a snare. It’s like the opening riff to a great piece of jazz. Sometimes I’m standing out there and I hear the blend and I think Ethel Waters is going to rise out of the surf and start wailing. The ocean is God’s orchestra. I will miss it.

In a moment, I am going to ask you to put the blade through your hand. When I ask you to do that, I want you to remember where your bones are, where you veins are. I want you to stab through your hand doing the least damage possible.' His voice is lulling, hypnotic, but my heart speeds anyway. Against my will, I aim the sharp point of the knife. I press is lightly against my skin. I am ready. I hate him, but I am ready. I hate him, and I hate myself. 'Now,' he says, and the glamour releases me. I take a half step back. I am in control of myself again, still holding the knife. ... My eyes on him, I slam the knife in to my hand. The pain is a wave that rises higher and higher but never crashes. I make a sound low in my throat. I may not deserve punishment for this, but I deserve punishment. Dain's expression is odd, blank. He takes a step back from me, as though I am the one who did the shocking thing instead of merely doing what he ordered.

I felt I was in the loneliest place in the world, and I was apprehensive. Nothing could be heard except the occasional crash of an unknown creature in the forest, and, once in awhile, a deep thrumming similar to the lowest barely audible sound of a string bass. I was standing alone in 1972 in a semi-ruined lighthouse that my wife, fifteen-year-old daughter, and I had just purchased. The lighthouse was located atop a 200-foot cliff on an island a dozen miles from the Lake Superior shoreline. I was separated from the nearest human being by an unknown but surely great distance, and had hiked several hours through the forest to reach the place, following the path of an old road that once led to the lighthouse but was now no longer passable with a vehicle. The low rumble I occasionally heard, straddling the lowest limit of my auditory range, was caused by an occasional large wave entering a cavern below the lighthouse and resonating in the stony echo chamber.

Dear Peter K, First of all I refuse to call you Kavinsky. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all of a sudden. Just so you know, Kavinsky sounds like the name of an old man with a long white beard. Did you know that when you kissed me, I would come to love you? Sometimes I think yes. Definitely yes. You know why? Because you think EVERYONE loves you, Peter. That’s what I hate about you. Because everyone does love you. Including me. I did. Not anymore. Here are all your worst qualities: You burp and you don’t say excuse me. You just assume everyone else will find it charming. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You do care. You care a lot about what people think of you. You always take the last piece of pizza. You never ask if anyone else wants it. That’s rude. You’re so good at everything. Too good. You could’ve given other guys a chance to be good, but you never did. You kissed me for no reason. Even though I knew you liked Gen, and you knew you liked Gen, and Gen knew you liked Gen. But you still did it. Just because you could. I really want to know: Why would you do that to me? My first kiss was supposed to be something special. I’ve read about it, what it’s supposed to feel like00fireworks and lightning bolts and the sound of waves crashing in your ears. I didn’t have any of that. Thanks to you it was as unspecial as a kiss could be. The worst part of it is, that stupid nothing kiss is what made me start liking you. I never did before. I never even thought about you before. Gen has always said that you are the best-looking boy in our grade, and I agreed, because sure, you are. But I still didn’t see the allure of you. Plenty of people are good-looking. That doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool. Maybe that’s why you kissed me. To do mind control on me, to make me see you that way. It worked. Your little trick worked. From then on, I saw you. Up close, your face wasn’t so much handsome as beautiful. How many beautiful boys have you ever seen? For me it was just one. You. I think it’s a lot to do with your lashes. You have really long lashes. Unfairly long. Even though you don’t deserve it, fine, I’ll go into all the things I like(d) about you: One time in science, nobody wanted to be partners with Jeffrey Suttleman because he has BO, and you volunteered like it was no big deal. Suddenly everybody thought Jeffrey wasn’t so bad. You’re still in chorus, even though all the other boys take band and orchestra now. You even sing solos. And you dance, and you’re not embarrassed. You were the last boy to get tall. And now you’re the tallest, but it’s like you earned it. Also, when you were short, no one even cared that you were short--the girls still liked you and the boys still picked you first for basketball in gym. After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and most of eighth. It hasn’t been easy, watching you with Gen, holding hands and making out at the bus stop. You probably make her feel very special. Because that’s your talent, right? You’re good at making people feel special. Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way? Probably not. People like you don’t have to suffer through those kinds of things. It was easier after Gen moved and we stopped being friends. At least then I didn’t have to hear about it. And now that the year is almost over, I know for sure that I am also over you. I’m immune to you now, Peter. I’m really proud to say that I’m the only girl in this school who has been immunized to the charms of Peter Kavinsky. All because I had a really bad dose of you in seventh grade and most of eighth. Now I never ever have to worry about catching you again. What a relief! I bet if I did ever kiss you again, I would definitely catch something, and it wouldn’t be love. It would be an STD! Lara Jean Song

From my WIP "In Hiding" Hidden in the darkness, she exhaled, releasing the tension. As she sunk into the worn cushions, Kate felt the wave of exhaustion crash over her. She dug in her backpack for the crackers wrapped in a paper towel. Closing her eyes, she ate, using her imagination to change the bland wafer into something more appealing. Retrieving her cell from her pocket, she shielded the artificial light with her hand as she set the alarm, always set to vibrate mode. The glow from the screen briefly illuminated her face. Her blond hair was history, the honey golden hue hidden under the dull dark cheap hair dye. Without makeup, she appeared younger than her twenty years, until you looked into her eyes. Here her anguish was center stage for the world to see. She barely slept and seldom ate. Worse were the dreams. Trapped in a surreal world, the explosion of gunfire surrounded her followed by blood splatter. Often, she woke on the edge of a scream waking in time to stifle her terror. She could ill afford this, screaming could bring him down on her. There were nights that she prayed it would, thus ending the torment for them both. Perhaps another night. Kate took one last glance around the room as she tucked her phone into her back jeans pocket. Slumping over, she was out before her head hit the sofa. Camouflaged she appears to be nothing more than a bundle of rags. Unseen in the darkness he slipped inside the house, blending into the shadows, he had waited patiently hidden in the edge of the woods, knowing she would seek shelter. Wayne closed his eyes and zoned in on her. Chasing this bitch was wearing on him; it was killing his focus. As his prey, she had developed self-persevering habits. She never left a trace of herself, not a sound, not a fiber or a hair. He drew a deep, silent breath, directing his senses, he concentrated on Kate, how she thought, what she feared.

Warm hands held her firm as he settled between her legs. His warm, wet tongue drew lazy circles around her sensitive flesh, so gently at first, she hovered between pleasure and pain, and then harder, faster, until the ache inside her blossomed into edgy need. He slid one thick finger into her wet heat, and then another, a sensual intrusion that stole her breath. And then his lips closed around her aching nub. She cried out, throwing back her head, hands fisting his hair, pleasure cresting and flooding through her veins, trickling out to her fingers and toes. With a low growl, he pushed up and sheathed himself with a condom he pulled from his pocket. On instinct, she rolled her hips, wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him close. Liam grabbed the edge of her headboard with one strong arm and plunged inside her. She gasped at the exquisite sensation and tightened her legs around him. Need pulsed beneath her skin. "Move, Liam. Please. I won't break." Her body took over, hands gripping his thick biceps, hips rocking, taking him deeper. A strangled groan escaped his lips and he gripped her hip so hard she knew his fingers would leave bruises. Braced against her headboard, he pulled out and pushed in deep and hard, shoulders straining as he gave in to her demands, filling a need she didn't know had existed, taking her outside of herself, beyond control. The bed squeaked, swayed. The headboard hammered against the wall in time to the rhythm of his thrusts. Need coiled inside her, tighter and tighter, until finally she peaked. Her spine arched, her orgasm sweeping through her body in a tidal wave of pleasure, filling her with heat. Liam growled her name, corded throat tightening, muscles going rigid as he followed her into oblivion. The sound of wood splintering startled her, made her heart jump. Liam dropped down, covering her with his body as the headboard split in two and crashed down on top of them. "Oh my God." She panted beneath him. "We broke the bed. Are you okay?" Liam heaved the headboard up so she could slip out from underneath him. When she was safely away, he lifted it onto the floor and gave a satisfied growl. "Now, that was good sex.

I hold my breath while he hooks his hands under my thighs. When he resumes, it's faster, harder, and a whole new level of euphoria. I press my eyes shut just as they start to roll back. That spot. That elusive spot every man had such a hard time locating is front and center now. I silently dub him the G-spot whisperer. Another deep thrust hits it again. Good thing I'm not trying to speak anymore, because I've lost all my words. All I have to offer are huffs of hot air and whimpering. Lots and lots of whimpering. The edge of Callum's mouth turns up, and I have to swallow to keep from choking at the divine sight. He looks like a god in this moment. His skin is a golden glow, painted in specks of sweat, highlighting every single cut muscle he possesses. And his expression---a cross between concentration and satisfaction. It's hard physical work he's doing, but he relishes it. I can tell by the glimmer in his eyes, the way his hands cradle my legs so I'm comfortably supported. I can tell by the pinch of his jaw, those soft grunts he let loose, that this is blowing his mind too. For the second time in one night, pressure builds inside me. The feeling is almost too much, but all I want is more. These long, deliberate thrusts are the greatest physical sensations my body has ever experienced. I could explode at any moment, but I want this to last. Forever, if possible. Arching my back, I press my head against the pillow. I cry out, sounding like a rabid banshee. A muttered curse falls from his lips. "That's it. Don't hold back." Pressure and heat collide, and I couldn't hold back if I tried. The deep thrusts keep coming like an endless loop of crashing waves. Callum and my G-spot are new best friends, it seems. Over and over, he hits it. Over and over, the sensations build to an overwhelming peak. His pace shifts from impressive to phenomenal. If Callum were a sex doll, I'd buy a dozen. His stamina, his technique, his adoration of me and my body, it's all perfection. When I burst, I'm even louder than before. And just like before, I'm ablaze from the inside out. Ecstasy pulses through every inch of skin and bone. My blood pumps hot, like lava flowing through my veins. Every muscle tightens, then loosens. Panting, I clutch Callum's forearms and watch his face as he hits his own peak.

SEA” Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur “SEA” Cherson! Cherson! You aint just whistlin Dixie, Sea— Cherson! Cherson! We calcimine fathers here below! Kitchen lights on— Sea Engines from Russia seabirding here below— When rocks outsea froth I’ll know Hawaii cracked up & scramble up my doublelegged cliff to the silt of a million years— Shoo—Shaw—Shirsh— Go on die salt light You billion yeared rock knocker Gavroom Seabird Gabroobird Sad as wife & hill Loved as mother & fog Oh! Oh! Oh! Sea! Osh! Where’s yr little Neppytune tonight? These gentle tree pulp pages which’ve nothing to do with yr crash roar, liar sea, ah, were made for rock tumble seabird digdown footstep hollow weed move bedarvaling crash? Ah again? Wine is salt here? Tidal wave kitchen? Engines of Russia in yr soft talk— Les poissons de la mer parle Breton— Mon nom es Lebris de Keroack— Parle, Poissons, Loti, parle— Parlning Ocean sanding crash the billion rocks— Ker plotsch— Shore—shoe— god—brash— The headland looks like a longnosed Collie sleeping with his light on his nose, as the ocean, obeying its accomodations of mind, crashes in rhythm which could & will intrude, in thy rhythm of sand thought— —Big frigging shoulders on that sonofabitch Parle, O, parle, mer, parle, Sea speak to me, speak to me, your silver you light Where hole opened up in Alaska Gray—shh—wind in The canyon wind in the rain Wind in the rolling rash Moving and t wedel Sea sea Diving sea O bird—la vengeance De la roche Cossez Ah Rare, he rammed the gate rare over by Cherson, Cherson, we calcify fathers here below —a watery cross, with weeds entwined—This grins restoredly, low sleep—Wave—Oh, no, shush—Shirk—Boom plop Neptune now his arms extends while one millions of souls sit lit in caves of darkness —What old bark? The dog mountain? Down by the Sea Engines? God rush—Shore— Shaw—Shoo—Oh soft sigh we wait hair twined like larks—Pissit—Rest not —Plottit, bisp tesh, cashes, re tav, plo, aravow, shirsh,—Who’s whispering over there—the silly earthen creek! The fog thunders—We put silver light on face—We took the heroes in—A billion years aint nothing— O the cities here below! The men with a thousand arms! the stanchions of their upward gaze! the coral of their poetry! the sea dragons tenderized, meat for fleshy fish— Navark, navark, the fishes of the Sea speak Breton— wash as soft as people’s dreams—We got peoples in & out the shore, they call it shore, sea call it pish rip plosh—The 5 billion years since earth we saw substantial chan—Chinese are the waves—the woods are dreaming

Slothrop is just settling down next to a girl in a prewar Worth frock and with a face like Tenniel’s Alice, same forehead, nose, hair, when from outside comes this most godawful clanking, snarling, crunching of wood, girls come running terrified out of the eucalyptus trees and into the house and right behind them what comes crashing now into the pallid lights of the garden but—why the Sherman Tank itself! headlights burning like the eyes of King Kong, treads spewing grass and pieces of flagstone as it manoeuvres around and comes to a halt. Its 75 mm cannon swivels until it’s pointing through the French windows right down into the room. “Antoine!” a young lady focusing in on the gigantic muzzle, “for heaven’s sake, not now. . . .” A hatch flies open and Tamara—Slothrop guesses: wasn’t Italo supposed to have the tank?—uh—emerges shrieking to denounce Raoul, Waxwing, Italo, Theophile, and the middleman on the opium deal. “But now,” she screams, “I have you all! One coup de foudre!” The hatch drops—oh, Jesus—there’s the sound of a 3-inch shell being loaded into its breech. Girls start to scream and make for the exits. Dopers are looking around, blinking, smiling, saying yes in a number of ways. Raoul tries to mount his horse and make his escape, but misses the saddle and slides all the way over, falling into a tub of black-market Jell-o, raspberry flavor, with whipped cream on top. “Aw, no . . .” Slothrop having about decided to make a flanking run for the tank when YYYBLAAANNNGGG! the cannon lets loose an enormous roar, flame shooting three feet into the room, shock wave driving eardrums in to middle of brain, blowing everybody against the far walls. A drape has caught fire. Slothrop, tripping over partygoers, can’t hear anything, knows his head hurts, keeps running through the smoke at the tank—leaps on, goes to undog the hatch and is nearly knocked off by Tamara popping up to holler at everybody again. After a struggle which shouldn’t be without its erotic moments, for Tamara is a swell enough looking twist with some fine moves, Slothrop manages to get her in a come-along and drag her down off of the tank. But loud noise and all, look—he doesn’t seem to have an erection. Hmm. This is a datum London never got, because nobody was looking. Turns out the projectile, a dud, has only torn holes in several walls, and demolished a large allegorical painting of Virtue and Vice in an unnatural act. Virtue had one of those dim faraway smiles. Vice was scratching his shaggy head, a little bewildered. The burning drape’s been put out with champagne. Raoul is in tears, thankful for his life, wringing Slothrop’s hands and kissing his cheeks, leaving trails of Jell-o wherever he touches. Tamara is escorted away by Raoul’s bodyguards. Slothrop has just disengaged himself and is wiping the Jell-o off of his suit when there is a heavy touch on his shoulder. “You were right. You are the man.” “That’s nothing.” Errol Flynn frisks his mustache. “I saved a dame from an octopus not so long ago, how about that?” “With one difference,” sez Blodgett Waxwing. “This really happened tonight. But that octopus didn’t.

Alone, we can listen, not to those who tell us we must see the famous this or that, or to the voice in our head that says a place must be as it seems in a film or on a website - but to what's really there. We can hear the muezzin, the bookseller, the rug hawker, the echoes of an ancient cistern and the mysteries buried within. Alone, we don't have to speak. We can feel the vibration of a city as it is in that moment in time and will never be again: the sound of the crowd, the waves crashing into the harbor, the cries of seagulls swooping over the Bosporus. Here, and then gone.

denna låt är en av de finaste låtar jag någonsin hört. herremingud va texten är vacker. det som händer vid 7:39 och efteråt är helt magiskt. denna värld förtjänar inte justin vernon, tänk att han skrivit både denna och re:stacks <3 The hills speaking softly to brag The rain is so quiet it's sad In liberty it rains so loud we can't hear It's so hard to see outside when it rains down here The arches hold together St. Louis And the mighty Mississippi splits right through us Before my arches rebuild, they must have a song But I can't proceed until the rain is gone Blue grey background on those moss green pines Heavy grown raindrops clinging to the electrical lines Floating in an atmosphere of truth and hidden lies Sometimes out here, I feel like my heroes can save my life Through the window of this ricket rail car And I see the world scene by scene The silver mountains and blue streams I will only ever smell the train steam We hear Louis Armstrong play his horn on the shortwave radio His sound breaks my heart with a stone in my throat Like a sword through a heart, leaking tears onto the ground So hard to see when it rains down here Alone, is where I been leading to be So I, just been sailing the seas The wind can blow me wherever it needs to take me The skipper taunts the sky Thunder and waves crashing into the side It will never break him, it will never save him

melody kept him company. There was a rustle of leaves close by as an animal scampered through the dense foliage. His anticipation grew at the sound of the waves crashing below. Two long months had passed since he’d been surfing. He wasn’t a kid any more. His work and family kept him busy. Sean had been born here in San Clemente,

But then his tongue moved over me and started to lick the whipped cream over my sex, making my legs fall open, swiping the creamy coolness down and over my cleft, making a long, ragged moan escape me, dragging a rumbling sound from his chest that made another rush of wet pool as his mouth closed over my clit and sucked hard. Then he devoured me, drove me up fast and unrelenting until the orgasm started to crest, seeming to start at the base of my spine and exploding outward until it took over whole body, making me cry out his name as he took possession of my clit and sucked it in pulses as the waves washed over me, dragging it out, intensifying everything. As soon as the waves lessened, he released me and licked a line back upward, taking the whipped cream off my breasts then pressing up to balance over me, wicked look in his eyes. "Tell me." "Tell you what?" I asked, brain nothing but sparking misfirings right then. He smiled at that, either delighted with his prowess or glad to torture me more. Or, more likely, both. I grabbed the can of whipped cream as I moved to straddle him, watching as his eyes went knowing just a second before I started making a line down his stomach with the cream, then down the little happy trail, over his balls, and then up the underside of his cock until there was a large amount on the swollen head. Then I tossed the can to the side and gave him a smile before ducking my head and starting my path down, deciding that while foreplay was always good, it was infinitely better with food involved as my tongue licked the cream off his balls then his shaft before closing my lips around the head and licking it off from there as well, making Brant let out a deep, primal groan that spurred me on, made me work him faster, deeper. "Maddy..." he warned, but I didn't need a warning. I wanted to make him come. I wanted to give him the selfless orgasm he gave me. "Fuck," he growled, his hand crushing into the back of my head as he came down my throat. I worked him for a long moment before letting him slide away, looking up at him to find an intense weight in his gaze. "From now on, we only ever eat dessert off of each other," he said a second later, his hand going under my chin and pulling me until I moved to straddle him, bringing my face close to his. "I can get behind that plan," I agreed with a smile before he yanked me forward and our lips crashed together. It wasn't a slow, sweet, post-orgasm kiss. It was still wild, hungry, primal. It said we weren't done. "Come on," he said when he pulled away, a little out of breath. "Let's go take a shower. That was hot as fuck but we're both sticky now." Thank God. I didn't want to complain, but every time I moved, my skin got stuck to his skin and it was weird and decidedly unsexy. I went to move off him, but his arms went to slip around my lower back, holding me to him as he stood and started walking around the house. Then up the stairs. I was generally not the kind of girl who got carried around. I was fit, sure, but I was tall and leggy and most guys wanted to carry around the short, lithe little women. But since Brant was a huge wall of muscle, he didn't seem bothered by my height and less than dainty limbs. He set me on my feet outside the shower and reached in to put the water on, water I knew would take a couple of minutes to warm up. But he stepped in regardless, cursing at the cold spray. "Yeah, I think not," I said when he looked at me expectantly. I should have known to step away. I really should have. But I didn't and the next thing I knew, he was yanking me in with him, making me let out a string of incredibly unladylike curses before I felt the water get warmer against my back.

And women who came from the sea could do anything and be anything. They felt the ceaselessness of the tides, knew the crash of the waves, and understood the power of the storms. They carried on because the ocean was infinite, an eternity of pain and wind and sun and hope and beautiful, sparkling horizon. She could tell them about the tiny shack on the outskirts of Aguela, the sound of the waves against her mother’s fishing boat, or the scrape of a good knife against her enemy’s blade under open skies. But none of that meant freedom and power. None of that would the mermaids understand. “These waters that you call home,” she said. “They are my home, too. And it’s about damn time for the tide to rise.

Everywhere I turned, everywhere I went, everybody had some3thing to say about love. Mothers, fathers, teachers, singers, musicians, poets, writers, friends. It was like the air It was like the ocean. It was like the sun. It was like the leaves on a tree in summer. It was like the rain that broke the drought. It was the soft sound of the water flowing through a stream. And it was the sound of the crashing waves against the shore in a storm. Love was why we fought all our battles. Love was what we lived and died for. Love was what we dreamed of as we slept. Love was the air we wanted to breathe in when we woke to greet the day. Love was a torch you carried to lead you out of darkness. Love took you out of exile and carried you to a country called Belonging

We all left exhausted, and I went home and baked. It's how I coped with stress. Something about shoving my hands in a good dough, baking off a fruit loaf with a delicate crumb, or producing a perfectly crunchy batch of chocolate cranberry biscotti simply brought me comfort. I opened the pocket doors and invited the fresh, salty air and the sound of crashing waves inside while I tested a new recipe for chocolate peanut butter muffins, made a loaf of Irish soda bread loaded with dried fruit, nuts, and orange zest, along with two dozen pecan sandies, and finished off with cranberry pistachio biscotti.

Silence settled upon us once more, the sounds of the crashing waves serving as a backdrop to our unspoken thoughts. It was as if time had slowed, allowing us to exist in this shared moment of vulnerability and understanding.

In a moment, I am going to ask you to put the blade through your hand. When I ask you to do that, I want you to remember where your bones are, where you veins are. I want you to stab through your hand doing the least damage possible.' His voice is lulling, hypnotic, but my heart speeds anyway. Against my will, I aim the sharp point of the knife. I press it lightly against my skin. I am ready. I hate him, but I am ready. I hate him, and I hate myself. 'Now,' he says, and the glamour releases me. I take a half step back. I am in control of myself again, still holding the knife. ... My eyes on him, I slam the knife in to my hand. The pain is a wave that rises higher and higher but never crashes. I make a sound low in my throat. I may not deserve punishment for this, but I deserve punishment. Dain's expression is odd, blank. He takes a step back from me, as though I am the one who did the shocking thing instead of merely doing what he ordered.

Method 3: Breathing As you sit quietly, tune in to the sensations of breathing. See if you can allow your attention to rest with the sensations of breathing in and breathing out. You don’t need to block out other sensations, sounds, or thoughts. Just tune in to the steady rhythm of breathing in and breathing out, much as you might listen to waves crashing on a beach. Let your breath come into focus naturally. It’s normal for the mind to wander to thoughts, sounds, or other experiences. Whenever you notice, gently bring your attention back to feeling your breath, appreciating that mindfulness is growing.

The heart is like a guitar string. If it's strung too loose, it won't make a sound. But if it's strung tight, almost to the breaking point, to the point of pain... Then... It can create a sound that crashes over you like a giant wave.

I run with him, two steps to his one just to keep up. We hit the water and plow into it, struggling to stay upright against the waves. I give in and pull my hand away, diving headfirst into one. It crashes over me and fills my ears with the sound of a rushing train. I push through, rising and diving again, until the waves become rolling hills. Before long, Gen and Paul join us. We splash each other and play until eventually the sea wears us out. Then we float, letting the rise and fall of the waves lift us to the sky and bring us back to earth, again and again. I stare up at the perfect blue sky, wondering how it’s possible there could be more to life than this. And by the time we turn to go back inside, I’ve come to the terrifying realization that it’s not possible. Up and down like the waves, to the sky and back to earth again, that’s what life is for me. I might not have chosen it, but it has unquestionably chosen me.

Do you remember when you told me you were powerless? Look at you now, Veyka. You are no longer the Queen of Secrets. You are Queen of the Void. Queen of this realm, and every realm, should you desire it.” I watched her as I spoke, the words pouring out of me easier with every syllable. A crash sounded from the direction of the rift, and I was aware of another wave of elementals crashing through it, heard Elora’s voice in the background. But every sense was tuned to Veyka—the scent of her exhaustion, the tangible crackle of her magic against my skin. She glowed brighter with every heartbeat as I went on: “The entire world is at your fingertips. Worlds that I cannot even imagine, beyond what the rest of us can see and hear and dream. Immortal? No, not next to you. You are not the elemental queen, or the void queen. You are an Ancestors-damned goddess. And after this, everyone in Annwyn will know it.

As he neared the gates, Haung noticed a slight figure dressed in a plain green robe, belted at the waist with a thin yellow sash, standing on his side of the road. She was smaller than the other adults around her but when she looked up at him, she towered above them all. He found it impossible to tear his eyes away, memories locking his gaze in place. In his ears, the blood echoed the sound of restless seas, each crashing wave a beat of his heart. He could feel himself being swept away into those dark eyes. His breath caught in his throat as she smiled shyly at him. He wanted to say something but nothing came to mind. Then she released him from her hold by turning back into the crowd and vanishing from sight. He wouldn’t let her go so easily and rose in his stirrups, craned his neck to try and catch another glimpse of Jiao.

He describes sailing across mountainous seas, lashed to the wheel the bare rigging overhead dancing with blue electricity, St Elmo's fire the sailors called it. His clothes so saturated with the salt water he can barely stand, would fall if he weren’t tied up. The ship heaves in the heavy swells and the waves crash endlessly over the deck. Anything that wasn't tied down has long slid into the churning maelstrom including three crewmembers that didn’t lash themselves up in time. He holds the wheel and steers so the prow is climbing the huge wave that has blotted out the storm clouds, so tall the ship is almost vertical as it crests the wave and slides down into the next tumultuous surge. He tells how he screams into the storm knowing that the sound will be snatched away almost before it escapes his mouth and will become lost in the turmoil. ‘There is no skill in manning your ship through seas that can smash it as though it were nothing but brittle planks of wood.’ Andre says, ‘Captains will boast of their prowess in a storm but you survive purely by the capricious will of the sea. She decides if you live or die, and in that situation all you can do is hold on for the ride and feel privileged that she has allowed you to see her at her most powerful.

Spectral analysis of music from classical to nursery rhymes has revealed a remarkable affinity with patterns in nature, in particular fractal distribution called 1/f noise, which is found in the sound of a waterfall or waves crashing on the beach. 1/f noise lies midway between the total chaos of white noise.. ..and overly-correlated brown noise. All music from Bach to the Beatles, even birdsong, is characterized by 1/f noise, displaying the same dynamic balance between predictability and surprise, between dull monotony and random discord. Seen in this light, music is essentially a simulation of the harmony in nature.

Way up in the mountains Sea level too far to be seen The clouds mask civilization below People replaced by a sea of green. Peace falls down from heaven In the form of a cleansing rain The trees could tell endless stories If you knew how to hear what they’re saying. An ocean of gray spills out below Walk on it if you dare to drown Its tendrils reach out and the waves crash But it all happens without a sound. Above the clouds, below the stars No money here, but endless wealth Inward is the hardest adventure of all Come above the clouds and find yourself.

Yes, I just…” Should I be honest and sound like a complete loser? Oh why the hell not? “I have not had a kiss like that in a while.” I licked my lips. He looked me dead in the eye. “Good.” A wave of silence crashed over us. I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, I better get going. See you soon?” I nodded dumbly. “Mmm-hmm.” He smiled and began to walk away. I couldn’t just let him go! “Declan!” He turned. “Yes, Cake?” Come on, brain! Think of something! “What should I wear? I mean, what kind of place is Shellshock?” Yes, yes, that was fine… damage averted. “California casual.” “Oh, ok.” I think I knew what that meant. Spend three hours getting ready to make it look like you just threw any-ol’-thing on. “Have a nice night.” He flicked his head my way. “You too.” Then he was gone. And then I was sad. It was ridiculous. Preposterous, even. I was going to have to come clean about the ring- eventually. I hoped he didn’t bring it up because I would probably tell the poor guy my life story to get to why the ring he bought meant so much to me.

GENERAL RAGINSKY: Mr. President, in order to exhaust fully the presentation of evidence in regard to the subject-matter of my report, I ask your permission to examine witness Josif Abgarovitch Orbeli— Tatiana dropped the cup of tea she was drinking, and it fell on the tile floor and broke, and Tatiana fell on the floor, too, on her knees, and began to pick up the pieces, every moment or so emitting cries of such distress that Vikki, who was nearby, jumped up, backed away and said in a stunned voice, “What’s wrong with you?” Tatiana waved her off with one hand, her other hand holding a ceramic shard which covered her mouth as she continued to listen to the bare echo that was the radio broadcast as it ceaselessly continued. A crash on the road, but the radio still plays music, still transmits sounds no matter how incongruous it is that the ear can somehow hear, that the brain can somehow listen—

At dusk in the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, Melissa Overton barely heard the constant sound of crickets chirping all around them. Prowling through the dense, tropical rainforest as a jaguar, she listened for the human voices that would clue her in that her prey was nearby. Waves crashed onto the sandy beaches in the distance as she made her way quietly, like a phantom predator, through the tangle of vines and broad, leafy foliage, searching for any sign of the poachers. Humans wouldn't have a clue as to what she and her kind were when they saw her - apparently nothing other than an ordinary jaguar. And she and her fellow jaguar shifters planned to keep it that way. Her partner on this mission, JAG agent Huntley Anderson, was nearby, just as wary and observant. The JAG Special Forces Branch, also known as the Golden Claws, was only open to jaguar shifters and served to protect both their shifter kind and their jaguar cousins....

I lived inscrutable hours, a succession of disconnected moments, in my night-time walk to the lonely shore of the sea. All the thoughts that have made men live and all their emotions that have died passed through my mind, like a dark summary of history, in my meditation that went to the seashore. I suffered in me, with me, the aspirations of all eras, and every disquietude of every age walked with me to the murmuring shore of the sea. What men wanted and didn’t achieve, what they killed in order to achieve, and all that souls have secretly been – all of this filled the feeling soul with which I walked to the seashore. What lovers found strange in those they love, what the wife never revealed to her husband, what the mother imagines about the son she didn’t have, what only had form in a smile or opportunity, in a time that wasn’t the right time or in an emotion that was missing – all of this went to the seashore with me and with me returned, and the waves grandly churned their music that made me live it all in a sleep. We are who we’re not, and life is quick and sad. The sound of the waves at night is a sound of the night, and how many have heard it in their own soul, like the perpetual hope that dissolves in the darkness with a faint plash of distant foam! What tears were shed by those who achieved, what tears lost by those who succeeded! And all of this, in my walk to the seashore, was a secret told me by the night and the abyss. How many we are! How many of us fool ourselves! What seas crash in us, in the night when we exist, along the beaches that we feel ourselves to be, inundated by emotion! All that was lost, all that should have been sought, all that was obtained and fulfilled by mistake, all that we loved and lost and then, after losing it and loving it for having lost it, realized we never loved; all that we believed we were thinking when we were feeling; all the memories we took for emotions; and the entire ocean, noisy and cool, rolling in from the depths of the vast night to ripple over the beach, during my nocturnal walk to the seashore …

The popping sound and black screen happened when I channeled the anger, the hate, the disgust until it felt like the wave was crashing over me.

The minute I set foot in that house, I knew I was born to live there. The ocean called to me. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore lulled me into drugging bliss. Everything was open and beautiful and new. The air felt lighter and crisp. The four of us walked in—Emilia, me, Vaughn, and his father—and the second I stood in the center of the living room, I knew it was my new home. I turned to Vaughn with a smile. “Let’s keep it.” Without a thought, he turned straight to his parents and narrowed his eyes at them. “Is it too late to rebel against your asses? Because you fucked me over real nice and good this time.” His father patted his shoulder with a patronizing smirk. “Watch and learn, son.” “Not sure I’d be dedicating my life to screwing over my imaginary kids, if we wanted to have them,” Vaughn countered. He still thought I wasn’t into the idea of kids. My silly, silly hubby.

It happened so fast I hardly saw it. One moment Reggie was above, incoherent with need. The next, I was crying out at the unexpected pleasure of being bitten. I was making love to an animal in that moment, all vestiges of the man Reginald was most of the time lost to the creature kissing and suckling at the shallow puncture wounds he'd made in my neck. Why didn't it hurt? Why did it feel good, when he bit me? The pleasure from his bite raced down my spine, straight to my cunt, amplifying my need to a nearly unbearable degree. Making me insatiable. When my next orgasm crashed over me, I ran straight into the blissful release, the waves of pleasure wiping my mind of everything but him. When I returned to myself, Reggie was groaning, fucking me so hard and so desperately I was going to have trouble walking for a week. "So beautiful, so sweet," he moaned, mouth coated red with me. He was nearing his breaking point; I could feel in the way his thrusts were becoming chaotic, frantic. I could hear it in the fevered pitch of his words. "I knew it. Knew you'd taste so good, I never want to leave you, want you, I--- you are mine." I felt, more than heard, the sound he made when he came. His hips stuttered up hard once, and again, and then his body went rigid above me, back bent in an exaggerated arc as he spilled himself. His eyes were unseeing, glassy with pleasure. I'd never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

... her ears were overcome by the sound of her own blood sloshing angrily through her veins, the sound of crashing waves, persistent and loud.

There was a roar and a great confusion of noise. Fires leaped up and licked the roof. The throbbing grew to a great tumult, and the Mountain shook. Sam ran to Frodo and picked him up and carried him out to the door. And there upon the dark threshold of the Sammath Naur, high above the plains of Mordor, such wonder and terror came on him that he stood still forgetting all else, and gazed as one turned to stone. A brief vision he had of swirling cloud, and in the midst of it towers and battlements, tall as hills, founded upon a mighty mountain-throne above immeasurable pits; great courts and dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs, and gaping gates of steel and adamant: and then all passed. Towers fell and mountains slid; walls crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting steams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming wave, and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land. And then at last over the miles between there came a rumble, rising to a deafening crash and roar; the earth shook, the plain heaved and cracked, and Orodruin reeled. Fire belched from its riven summit. The skies burst into thunder seared with lightning. Down like lashing whips fell a torrent of black rain. And into the heart of the storm, with a cry that pierced all other sounds, tearing the clouds asunder, the Nazgûl came, shooting like flaming bolts, as caught in the fiery ruin of hill and sky they crackled, withered, and went out.

Serch." Why did he always sound like the one who'd been left, who'd been denied? His fingers brushed Serch's forearm, though, and it damn near took him out. His belly pulled tight and heat crashed over his head like a fucking wave, rocking him and weakening his limbs. "Don't do this," German begged softly. "Gram is gone. It's just you and me now." He clasped Serch's shoulder. "I don't want to fight." All Serch had was the fight, otherwise, he'd be empty, hollowed out by the pain with no one to pass it off to. "Serch." German's whole fucking palm rested on Serch's face. It just sat there, warm and enticing. The best touch a beggar like him could ever hope to have. "I love you." His soul shook. His heart broke all over again. Serch spun away from him, giving German his back as he leaned against the doorframe, head bowed. "Please." That shaky voice sounded close, too close to Serch. "Please." "Fuck your love." Serch faced him with a snarl, chest heaving as he gave up on attempting to control himself. "You love me, German? You kiss me and tell me you want me, and then the instant I turn my back you move across the fucking country with somebody else. You love me? You stay away for years and only speak to me once, once--" He held up a finger. "On the phone." His brother's mouth opened and closed, but Serch refused to let him talk. "I've had birthdays without you. I've taken care of Gram without you. I had to watch her die..." His voice disappeared then, and he had to swallow and swallow before finishing. "Without you." "I'm sorry." "Don't tell me that shit!" Serch exploded. "Tell me how I can stop wanting you, because I do. Tell me how I can stop feeling your body against mine, because I do. Your cries, your taste. I still get off on them." He grabbed the front of his own t-shirt, fisting it, tugging on it. "Tell me how to stop missing you, because I've been lonely since the day you left. And I'm alone now, even with your breath incinerating my skin." "I miss you, too." Fuck! Somebody moved. Somebody must have moved because they were on each other, the press of their bodies so fucking good Serch's eyes watered. German was in his embrace, arms at his nape, fingers gripping his hair. Parted lips on his.

And Althea kept on talking. Maybe she was singing? Sometimes it even sounded like waves crashing against the shore, and leaves rustling with the wind, and birds singing in the wild…how strange.

Whenever Daddy would take me to the ocean, I'd see it in its beauty--the blues and turquoises of the water, the ripples and movements that drenched my ears in soothing sounds. But Daddy never took me there during the storms. We didn't go to shore when a hurricane came or the waves crashed high and hard onto the sand. What Daddy had come to know was the dichotomy, the mixing of the beauty and destruction, the awe and devastation that the force of nature could unleash.

So there we were before breakfast in the hotel garden beneath palm trees, all wearing our matching conference T-shirts. The sound of waves crashing into the hotel beach was drowned out by a boom box playing loud electro workout music to pump us up: exuberant, high-octane tunes with pulsating rhythms that keep building to new crescendos. After dividing into teams, we spent the next forty-five minutes racing from one exercise to the next—planks, squats, sit-ups, sprints, and burpees (a combined squat, push-up, and vertical jump)—constantly high-fiving each other and shouting encouragements. At the end, everyone was exhausted, and we all congratulated each other for our efforts, agreeing vociferously how much fun it was. I enjoyed myself, but was it fun? I did the exercises as best I could, but what I actually enjoyed was the camaraderie, the beautiful setting, the high-fiving, and even the music. Afterward, I also enjoyed the feeling of having exercised intensely. But frankly, the planks, squats, sit-ups, sprints, and burpees were hard. The routine brought to mind the running guru George Sheehan’s observation that “exercise is done against one’s wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse.

I can hear his laughter over the sounds of the crashing waves. I watch with utter joy as my son surfs with a man who has stormed into my life and caused complete chaos inside of my heart.

There is anyway a kind of off-color romance to a deserted seaside town in the winter, your heart’s opera scored by the sound of the tide crashing over a stony beach, shushing everything as the waves try to make up their mind whether they’re leaving or staying. White waves kissing black stones, shushing all around them. Shhh … shhh.

THE HEARTBEAT OF DEATH There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death’s pulse, death’s heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.

Painfully he got to his feet and stood at the foot of the body. The silence was numinous, broken only by the sound of the sea. He listened to it, not in the sense of being aware of the rhythmic crash of the waves against the unyielding granite, but letting the perpetual sound enter into some deeper level of consciousness so that it became an eternal lament for the unhealable anguish of the world.

You, more than most, know the concept of right and wrong. And so does Julian. Why have you endured, resisted wrong, when others turned? You fought for justice, for our people. You had a code, and you have always lived up to it, as you are doing now. You say you have no feeling, but what of the compassion you felt for your lifemate when she was so frightened? You cannot turn. Every moment is an eternity for you, I know, but you have an end in sight." Gregori's cold eyes seemed to impale Aidan, but the younger Carpathian did not flinch. He held Gregori's gaze until Alexandria could have sworn she saw a flicker of fire, a flame, springing from one to the other. Gregori's hard mouth softened slightly. "You have learned well, Aidan. You are a healer of both body and mind." Aidan inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. The wind howled, the waves crashed, and Gregori launched himself into the dark, roiling clouds. A black shape spread across the sky, an ominous shadow staining the heavens, and then it moved north and faded away as if it had never been, taking the storm with it. Aidan sank into the sand, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking, as if he was trying to control some great emotion that had overcome him. Alexandria circled his head with her arms. She could feel sobs tearing at his throat and chest, yet he made no sound. Only a single, blood-red tear marked his great sorrow. "I am sorry, cara, but he is a great man, one our people cannot afford to lose. I could feel his bleakness, the inner demon waiting to devour him. To have to honor my promise to him, to have to hunt him..." He shook his head. "It is such a disservice to one who has dedicated his life to our people, to our Prince." Alexandria's breath caught in her throat. She had thought Aidan invincible. Capable, even, of hunting vampires and triumphing over their evil power. But Gregori was a different proposition. Even with two hunters such as Aidan, it didn't seem possible that he could be defeated. "Can't you contact this woman, the one who could save him?" Aidan shook his head regretfully. "He would continue to honor his vow, and her presence would only make things worse.

Seeing moving water triggered a response in humans’ brains that induced a flood of neurochemicals—ones that increased blood flow to the brain and heart. The sound of the waves crashing could even alter the brain’s wave patterns and put a person in a meditative state. And just being near water supposedly reduced anxiety, increased happiness, and lowered the heart rate. Perhaps water had that effect on humans because we needed it for our survival. The liquid made up seventy percent of our body. Due to that, there was a deep biological connection between our brains and water.

Breath!’ A voice, wild with anxiety, ordered, and I felt a cruel stab of pain where I recognized the voice because it wasn't Marcel’s. I could not obey. The waterfall pouring from my mouth didn't stop long enough for me to catch a breath. The black, icy water filled my chest, burning. The rock smacked into my back again, right between my shoulder blades, and another volley of water choked its way out of my lungs. ‘Breathe, Bell! C'mon!’ Marcel begged. Black spots bloomed across my vision, getting wider and wider, blocking out the light. The rock struck me again. The rock wasn't cold like the water; it was hot on my skin. I realized it was Marcel’s hand, trying to beat the water from my lungs. The iron bar that had dragged me from the sea was also… warm… My head whirled; the black spots covered everything… Was I dying again, then? I didn't like it. This wasn't as good as the last time. It was only dark now, nothing worth looking at here. The sound of the crashing waves faded into the black and became a quiet, even whoosh that sounded like it was coming from the inside of my ears… ‘Bell?’ Marcel asked, his voice still tense, but not as wild as before. ‘Bells, honey, can you hear me?’ The contents of my head swished and rolled sickeningly like they'd joined the rough water… ‘How long has she been unconscious?’ someone else asked. The voice that was not Marcel’s shocked me, jarred me into a more focused awareness. I realized that I was still. There was no tug of the current on me-the heaving was inside my head. The surface under me was flat and motionless. It felt grainy against my bear arms. ‘I don't know,’ Marcel reported, still frantic. His voice was very close. Hands-so warm they had to be his- I brushed wet hair from my cheeks. ‘A few minutes? It didn't take long to tow her to the beach.’ The quiet whooshing inside my ears was not the waves-it was the air moving in and out of my lungs again. Each breath burned-the passageways were as raw as if I'd scrubbed them out with steel wool. But I was breathing. And I was freezing. A thousand sharp, icy beads were striking my face and arms, making the cold worse. ‘She's breathing. She'll come around. We should get her out of the cold, though. I don't like the color she's turning…’ I recognized Sam's voice this time. ‘You think it's okay to move her?’ ‘She didn't hurt her back or anything when she fell?’ ‘I don't know.’ They hesitated.

Rowan’s own release barreled through him at the sight of it, and he groaned her name so that she remembered it at last, lightning joining wind and ice over the water. Aelin held him through it, sending the fire-opal of her magic to twine with his power. On and on, as he spilled himself in her, lightning and flame danced on the sea. The lightning continued to strike, silent and lovely, even after he stilled. The sounds of the world came pouring back in, his breathing as ragged as the hiss of the crashing waves while he brushed lazy kisses to her temple, her nose, her mouth. Aelin drew her eyes away from the beauty of their magic, the beauty of them, and found his face to be the most beautiful of all. She was trembling—and so was Rowan as he remained in her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, his uneven

I have also learned that the cruel absurdity of this world has been totally unsuccessful at stopping the beautiful sound of waves crashing into the shore; the swells remain as smooth as ever and the continuous flow of water, the currents, have no prejudice to surrender to the wind, the gravitational pull of the moon, nor to the rotation of the earth. In our life there is no shame in yielding to the things or people who positively influence us. Even oceanic creatures can chase our sadness away in just one fraction of a moment.

Now a strange mood took hold of me, as I walked silent and alone through the last of the pines and the cypress knees that seemed to float in the black water, the gray moss that coated everything. It was as if I traveled through the landscape with the sound of an expressive and intense aria playing in my ears. Everything was imbued with emotion, awash in it, and I was no longer a biologist but somehow the crest of a wave building and building but never crashing to shore. I saw with such new eyes the subtleties of the transition to the marsh, the salt flats. As the trail became a raised berm, dull, algae-choked lakes spread out to the right and a canal flanked it to the left. Rough channels of water meandered out in a maze through a forest of reeds on the canal side, and islands, oases of wind-contorted trees, appeared in the distance like sudden revelations. The stooped and blackened appearance of these trees was shocking against the vast and shimmering gold-brown of the reeds. The strange quality of the light upon this habitat, the stillness of it all, the sense of waiting, brought me halfway to a kind of ecstasy.

Where is He when your world is crumbling down around you . . . when despair is pulling you under, and impossibilities surround you? In times like these, God is right where He has been all along . . . with you ALWAYS. You might not hear it over the crashing waves, the shouts of fear within your soul, or the sounding alarms of your pain, but God is speaking to you in the midst of it all, and His words could not be more clear, “Just don’t move.

EVERYWHERE I TURNED, EVERYWHERE I went, everybody had something to say about love. Mothers, fathers, teachers, singers, musicians, poets, writers, friends. It was like the air. It was like the ocean. It was like the sun. It was like the leaves on a tree in summer. It was like the rain that broke the drought. It was the soft sound of the water flowing through a stream. And it was the sound of the crashing waves against the shore in a storm. Love was why we fought all our battles. Love was what we lived and died for. Love was what we dreamed of as we slept. Love was the air we wanted to breathe in when we woke to greet the day. Love was a torch you carried to lead you out of darkness. Love took you out of exile and carried you to a country called Belonging.

FitzRoy felt a sudden urge to stop in the middle of the swarm, and perform an about-turn; to shout at his fellows, that there were other places in this world, other peoples, that most of them would never even become aware of, other sights and sounds that were every bit as vital a part of God's universe as they were. He wanted to tell them of sixty-foot waves, of crashing earthquakes and exploding volcanoes, of majestic Araucanian tribesmen with long, tapering lances, of wild-haired, white painted Fuegians lighting fires on their lonely windswept shores at the far end of the world

The king had retained full consciousness to the last. At a pause in the death rattle, his confessor asked him whether he was in much pain. ‘Ah! Ah! Ah! Beaucoup,’ Louis replied. ‘As long as I live,’ the abbé recalled, ‘those three Ahs! will stick in my memory.’ A valet snuffed out a candle that had been placed in a window to signal the king’s passing. Immediately there was a mighty roar, like a thunder roll, or the crashing of a series of mighty waves. It was the stamp of courtiers’ feet as they rushed headlong from the king’s ante-chamber to those of the dauphin – the sound of power escaping from a vacuum. For as the Great Chamberlain announced in the salon of the Oeil-de-Boeuf, ‘Messieurs, le roi est mort! Vive le Roi.

There on the beach, with no sound but that of the ocean waves and of the wind passing high overhead, like a large invisible aeroplane, I experienced dreams of a new sort – soft and shapeless things, marvels that made a deep impression, without images or emotions, clear like the sky and the water, and reverberating, like the crumbling white lace of the risen ocean's whorls, from the depths of a vast truth: a tremulously oblique blue in the distance that acquired glistening, muddy-green hues as it approached, breaking with a great hissing its thousand crashing arms to scatter them over darkish sand where they left dry foam, and then gathering into itself all undertows, all return journeys to that original freedom, all nostalgias for God, all memories (like this one, shapeless and painless) of a previous state, blissful because it was so good or because it was different, a body made of nostalgia with a soul of foam, repose, death, the everything or the nothingness which – like a huge ocean – surrounds the island of castaways that is life.