Spark Between Us Quotes

My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah

I wanted more of her, & no matter what happened between us, I already knew I’d never forget anything about her. As crazy as it sounded, she was becoming part of me, & I was already dreading the fact that we wouldn’t be able to spend the day together tomorrow. Or the day after, or the day after that. Maybe, I told myself, we could beat the odds

I'll think about you every day. Part of me is scared that there will come a time when you don't feel the same way,that you'll somehow forget what we shared, so this is what I want to do. Wherever you are and no matter what's going on in your life, when it's the first night of the full moon-like it was the first time we met-I want you to find it in the nighttime sky. I want you to think about me and the week we shared, because wherever I am and no matter what's going on in my life, that's exactly what I'll be doing. If we can't be together, at least we can share that, and maybe between the two of us, we can make it last forever.

I know it can't be the same between us, but that doesn't change the way I felt about you then.

Usually, when we think of power, we think of external power. And we think of powerful people as those who have made it in the world. A powerful woman isn’t necessarily someone who has money, but we think of her as someone with a boldness or a spark that makes her manifest in a dramatic way. When we think of a powerful man, we think of his ability to manifest abundance, usually money, in the world. Most people say that a powerful woman does best with a powerful man, that she needs someone who understands the bigness of her situation, a man who can meet her at the same or even greater level of power in the world. Now this is true, if power is defined as material abundance. A woman often faces cultural prejudice when she makes more money than a man, as does he. A woman who defines power by worldly standards can rarely feel totally relaxed in the arms of a man who doesn’t have it. If power is seen as an internal matter, then the situation changes drastically. Internal power has less to do with money and worldly position, and more to do than with emotional expansiveness, spirituality and conscious living… I used to think I needed a powerful man, someone who could protect me from the harshness and evils of the world. What I have come to realize is that…the powerful man I was looking for would be foremost, someone who supported me in keeping myself on track spiritually, and in so maintaining clarity within myself, that life would present fewer problems. When it did get rough, he would help me forgive. I no longer wanted somebody who would say to me, “Don’t worry honey, if they’re mean to you I’ll beat them up or buy them out.” Instead, I want someone who prays and meditates with me regularly so that fewer monsters from the outer world disturb me, and who when they do, helps me look within my own consciousness for answers, instead of looking to false power to combat false power. There’s a big difference between a gentle man and a weak man. Weak men make us nervous. Gentle men make us calm.

a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.

Spending time with Savannah made me wonder whether it was possible to defy the norm. I wanted more of her, and no matter what happened between us, I already knew I'd never forget anything about her. As crazy as it sounded, she was becoming part of me, and I was already dreading the fact that we wouldn't be able to spend the day together tomorrow. Or the day after, or the day after that. Maybe, I told myself, we could beat the odds.' - John

He’s a lovely guy, but there’s no spark between us whatsoever. It just goes to show, that even with all their fancy assessment tools, the government can’t legislate for chemistry.

We both fell asleep wrapped up together with the wolves still lullaby-ing us in the background

Like most conversations and most chess games, we all start off the same and we all end the same, with a brief moment of difference in between. Fertilization to fertilizer. Ashes to ashes. And we spark across the gap.

Arm in arm, we left her room, the beginnings of a real relationship shimmering in the air between us, just like the bright pink sparks fluttering up from the Valkyrie's fingertips.

A story wearing another dress every time you hear it - what could be better? A story that grows and puts out flowers like a living thing! But look at the stories people press in books! They may last longer, yes, but they breathe only when someone opens the book. They are sound pressed between the pages, and only a voice can bring them back to life! Then they throw off sparks, Balbulus! Then they go free as birds flying out into the world. Perhaps you're right, and the paper makes them immortal. But why should I care? Will I live on, neatly pressed between the pages with my words? Nonsense! We're none of us immortal; even the finest words don't change that, do they?

I’ve always had a secret love for Emma, though not perhaps in the way that people might want to hear. That isn’t to say there’s never been a spark between us. There most definitely has, only at different times.

it was the us they created whenever they were together - that had made all of this both natural and inevitable. She couldn't help thinking that the story between them was somehow unfinished; that both of them were waiting to write the ending.

Marya put down her fork. “Why are you doing this, Koschei? I have had lovers before. You have, too. Remember Marina? The rusalka? She and I swam together every morning. We raced the salmon. You called us your little sharks.” The Tsar of Life held his knife so tightly Marya could see his knucklebones bulging. “Were any of them called Ivan? Were any of them human boys all sticky with their own innocence? I know you. I know you because you are like me, as much like me as two spoons nested in each other.” Her husband leaned close to her, the candlelight sparking in his dark, shaggy hair. “When you steal them, they mean so much more, Marousha. Trust me. I know. What did I do wrong? Was I boring? Did I ignore you? Did I not give you enough pretty dresses? Enough emeralds? I’m sure I have more, somewhere.” Marya lifted her hand and laid it on her husband’s cheek. With a blinking quickness, she drove her nails deep into his face. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that. I have worn nothing but blood and death for years. I have fought all your battles for you, just as you asked me. I have learned all the tricks you said I must learn. I have learned not to cry when I strangle a man. I have learned to lay my finger aside my nose and disappear. I have learned to watch everything die. I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too. And if I have watched all my soldiers die in front of me, if I have only been saved by my rifle and my own hands, if I have drunk more blood than water for weeks, then I take the human boy who stumbled into my tent and hold him between my legs until I stop screaming, you will not punish me for it. Are we not chyerti? Are we not devils? I will not even hear your punishment, old man.

I heard the bathroom door close and I kept my eyes screwed shut, but my heart skyrocketed into uncharted territories. I folded my arms around me and held my breath. There was the slightest movement behind me. Skin brushed against mine. A fine shiver rolled up my spine. An infinite spark transferred between us, something that couldn’t be replicated or forced. How could I’ve forgotten that when connected with Seth? My heart turned over heavily. Aiden brushed the mass of thick hair over one shoulder and his lips met the space between my neck and shoulder. His hands slid down the slick skin of my arms, cupping over my elbows and then to my wrists. Gently, slowly, he eased my arms to my sides. I bit down on my lip and my legs started trembling. But he was there. Like always, holding me up when I couldn’t stand on and letting me go when he knew I needed him to. He was more than just a shelter. AIden was my other half, my equal. And he needed no weird Apollyon connection. Aiden waited, still as a statue, patient as ever, until my muscles unlocked, one by one. Then his hands dropped to my waist and he turned me toward him. A heartbeat passed and he placed his fingers on my chin, tipping my head back. I opened my eyes, blinking the wetness off my lashes, and the air hitched in my throat. Faint, purplish bruises shadowed his jaw. There was a cut over the bridge of his nose. No doubt injuries I had given him.

There was a spark between us that I'd never felt with any of the other (four) guys that I'd kissed. When we were making out, it was almost impossible for me to keep my hands off of him, and kissing him made my stomach flip over.

If you're Strigoi," the boy interrupted loudly, "then why don't you have horns? My friend Jeffrey said Strigoi have horns." Dimitri's eyes fell not on the boy but on me for a moment. Again, that spark of knowing shot between us. Then, face smooth and serious, Dimitri turned to the boy and answered, "Strigoi don't have horns. And even if they did, it wouldn't matter because I'm not a Strigoi.

She is still my mission, and I am still her monster. What happened between us, past and present, was nothing more than a mistake. A lapse in judgment. A spark between two strangers in the night.

The moment I realized this had not just been about making love. But that something bigger, deeper pulsed between us. And then my heart broke, because whatever dormant spark had just ignited within us, it must not be given chance to flourish. Tears

Not that anyone would notice. You stand out like a spark in a dark room all on your own. For someone like me? I have to try to stand out.” “Not anymore,” he says. “You are being courted by the king. That fact alone makes you the most popular girl in the world.

I felt safe." I watched as he swallowed what I'd said. I felt safe Something so simple, yet it meant everything to me. Donovan closed the gap between us and brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. "I want to give you the world, but you just gave it to me by saying that, Red.

Denial met arousal. Frustration met need. Daisy met Danny, and those damn sparks flew between us.

Let us love like the spark Between flint and stone In reckless abandonment, Promising no eternities, But promising only to seek out Upon each day’s sunrise Something to choose to love In each other.

Passionate kisses, the intoxicating exchange of breath and saliva - and something more intimate - something there was no real name for, like a spark catching between us and taking light. How had I forgotten this? How had I been satisfied with anything else? Guy...Mel...it was like choosing celluloid kisses over the real thing. The real thing was raw and powerful and dangerous...but it was the real thing. Had I really believed I could make do with safe substitutes?

Joe O'Reilly is a wonderful man, and a doting father, but he will often side with mechanical objects over his children. If it comes down to a dispute between one of us and a six-foot metal door panel clunking to the ground in a shower of sparks, he'll take the door's word for it every time.

Do you trust me?” Tam said it almost too softly to be heard. I hesitated, sighed, then reached down and took his hand. Tam’s fingers wrapped warm and strong around mine. The magic sparked between us, though this time it was warm and tingling, not violent and lustful. “Though you’re the last thing I need,” I muttered. I heard the smile in his voice. “But I’m the first thing you want.

She was my best friend. But damn, I wanted to kiss her. To say to hell with our friendship and see what we could make of this spark between us.

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.

It’s me,” he says softly. “Stop listening to everything else. Remember the way you feel when I’m kissing you and touching you. Don’t think with your head. You know me. And when my lips are on yours, you trust me.” As if to make his point, he dips his head and brushes his mouth over mine. Sparks fly between us. As always. “You trust me, when my hands are on your skin.” He runs his palms down my arms and then over to my waist where he pushes them up under the edge of my shirt. Chills break out down my back. “You trust me when you turn your mind off, when you just feel.

The poem you brought yesterday,’ said Balbulus in a bored voice as he bent over his work again, ‘it was good. You ought to write such things more often, but I know you prefer writing stories for children or songs for the Motley Folk. And why? Just for the wind to sing your words? The spoken word is nothing, it hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal!’ ‘Eternal?’ Fenoglio made the word sound as if there could be nothing more ridiculous in the world. ‘Nothing is eternal- and what happier fate could words have than to be sung by minstrels? Yes, of course they change the words, they sing them slightly differently every time, but isn’t that in itself wonderful? A story wearing another dress every time you hear it- what could be better? A story that grows and puts out flowers like a living thing! But look at the stories people press in books! They may last longer, yes, but they breathe only when someone opens the book. They are sound pressed between the pages, and only a voice can bring them back to life! Then they throw off sparks, Balbulus! Then they go free as birds flying out into the world. Perhaps you’re right, and the paper makes them immortal. But why should I care? Will I live on, neatly pressed between the pages with my words? Nonsense! We’re none of us immortal; even the finest words don’t change that, do they?

I blame her for it. Blame her for cracking my carefully crafted mask, shattering it to pieces when she is around. I’ve never felt so much, never feared so much. But if I must endure the consequences that feeling something for her brings, then so does she. It’s like a tangible tether between us, this consuming connection. I will her to meet my eyes, and when they do – Sparks. Electricity.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

A warm, ragged breath disturbed the hairs on my forehead, and my blood began pricking as I realized where exactly I had retreated: right into Mr. Braddock, our strange connection humming through the hairsbreadth of distance between our bodies, our faces. I froze, forcing myself to stop shoving against him further. Before I understood anything, a rough, large hand brushed my chin, my face tipped upwards, and his mouth caught mine, and suddenly my entire body was on fire. Whatever odd sensation had thrummed between us before was just the stroke of a violin bow to this clash of an orchestra. I felt the world pass between our lips, tasting champagne, hunger, and something indefinably darker, while his hand ignited sparks down my cheek to the nape of my neck. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer, forcing that elusive essence to run deeper than my skin, deeper than my veins, until my very bones vibrated.

I’m glad you’re here, Lila,” he said. “I hope you feel that way, too.” Devon stared at me, a mix of emotions swirling through his eyes. I saw everything I had that first day at the Razzle Dazzle—the guilt, grief, sorrow, and all the other burdens he carried in his heart. And then there was that hot spark, a little darker and dimmer than before, but still burning all the same. “Me too,” I said. Devon smiled, and that spark brightened just for a moment, and I felt an answering bit of warmth stir in my own heart. I nodded at him, and we both went back to our food, things a little less tense between us. A few seconds later, we were laughing, along with Oscar, as Mo and Felix talked over each other nonstop. Somewhere between those laughs and all the others that morning, I realized something. My home. My friends. My Family. Sometimes, good things come in threes.

What impression did I make on you?” The question sparked and hissed like a live wire between us, swallowing enough oxygen to make every breath a struggle. Christian set his glass down with a precision that pulsed in my veins. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.” Surprise tinged with hurt bloomed in my chest. “That bad?” From what I remembered, our first meeting had been fairly standard. I’d said a total of two words to him. “No.” The word was a rough caress against my skin. “That good.

We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.

I know how this looks. It looks like we’re bantering, like sparks are flying between us like in witty, old romantic comedies. It looks like the start of something. But I promise you, there are no sparks. Nothing here is on fire. Archibald chuckles. “Well, Evie, this is our grandson, Xavier.” “It’s just X, Gramps,” X says. He gives Maggie a hug.

To be of service to others, is to serve our own soul, there is no greater love than the one we have been created with and that is the Divine spark within all of us

When we kissed, that flame sparked between us, pushing away the darkness that threatened to swallow me. It was a feeling I wasn’t ready to lose.

Two souls beneath one sky, One sentence trailing another, There once was a spark shining underneath; Until time passed, and we became familiar strangers.

Two souls beneath one sky, One sentence trailing another, There once was a spark, shining underneath— Until time passed, and we became familiar strangers.

sparks dancing between us. She is the embodiment of a bad decision. The twin of danger and desire. The fine line between deadly and divine. And I can feel myself drowning.

I should have known there would be no sparks between us, only a conflagration.

Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply" Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths, love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock molten, yet dense and permanent. Go down to your deep old heart, woman, and lose sight of yourself. And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved. Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors. For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths out of sight, in the deep dark living heart. But say, in the dark wild metal of your heart is there a gem, which came into being between us? is there a sapphire of mutual trust, a blue spark? Is there a ruby of fused being, mine and yours, an inward glint? If there is not, O then leave me, go away. For I cannot be bullied back into the appearances of love, any more than August can be bullied to look like March. Love out of season, especially at the end of the season is merely ridiculous. If you insist on it, I insist on departure. Have you no deep old heart of wild womanhood self-forgetful, and gemmed with experience, and swinging in a strange union of power with the heart of the man you are supposed to have loved? If you have not, go away. If you can only sit with a mirror in your hand, an ageing woman posing on and on as a lover, in love with a self that now is shallow and withered, your own self–that has passed like a last summer’s flower– then go away– I do not want a woman whom age cannot wither. She is a made-up lie, a dyed immortelle of infinite staleness.

Love forms bonds between us, but not to hold us back. They're meant to save us if we fall, or help us all climb higher. Yes, things break beyond repair sometimes, but we can always build anew. If our fire ever fades, it just takes a single spark to set it off again. No matter how dark things get, we can all help light the way. We can make this life beautiful for ourselves and for each other. And we all deserve to be here, whatever shape or color we come in.

The moment I realized this had not just been about making love. But that something bigger, deeper pulsed between us. And then my heart broke, because whatever dormant spark had just ignited within us, it must not be given chance to flourish.

Polyconsciousness is what one researcher termed the resulting state of mind that divides attention between the physical world and the one our devices connect us to, undermining here-and-now interactions with actual people and things around us.

It is when we develop both our inner man and woman that we find a new harmony and wholeness within ourselves. Healing means to develop and integrate our inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. To rediscover our own inner source of love, we need to embrace both the male and female sides within ourselves. When these two sides are developed and integrated, a new spark of love, joy, harmony, creativity and wholeness arises within us. Awareness is an inner harmony between opposite poles and tendencies.

It is easy to see why so many people view empathy as a powerful force for goodness and moral change. It is easy to see why so many believe that the only problem with empathy is that too often we don’t have enough of it. I used to believe this as well. But now I don’t. Empathy has its merits. It can be a great source of pleasure, involved in art and fiction and sports, and it can be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships. And it can sometimes spark us to do good. But on the whole, it’s a poor moral guide. It grounds foolish judgments and often motivates indifference and cruelty. It can lead to irrational and unfair political decisions, it can corrode certain important relationships, such as between a doctor and a patient, and make us worse at being friends, parents, husbands, and wives.

I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter any more, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me - Noah "The Notebook

We are images of Adonai, and are responsible for one another, and for taking care of all on earth created by Adonai: just as Adonai is responsible for everything created. We learned to differentiate between good and evil. We can even create order out of chaos, as Adonai did on day one. We not only procreate, but also teach the next generations. (Deuteronomy 6:7). All of these abilities and responsibilities, we inherited when created in the image of Adonai. Every person also has a spark of Adonai within. We can choose to ignore this, or to embrace this. We have the power of choice. With this great power, comes great responsibility. You see, not only were we given the ability to reason, but also, we have the ability to create a new and different future, because we have the ability to change, both ourselves, and the world.

He pressed his forearms flat against the wall, caging me with his body. Electric heat sparked in the space between us. He pulled back. His irises swirled with silver flecks, twisting into a metallic pool. His Wolf stared down at me. "I don't want anyone touching you, except me.

Because he knew, we both knew, that our friendship had always held the capacity for more. The air hummed thicker between us. It startled us with intermittent and unpredictable sparks. This wasn’t the one-way charge of seeing somebody attractive; the charge was striking in both directions.

There is something wonderful between us, and it sparks to life from a mere glance and transcends into something so profound at times that I am breathless, unable to believe such a feelings for this person could be real. I am certain, so certain that the duke feels it, too! The wretched, odious man!

Ah, yes. There it was. That warmth I’d been craving ... The air between us suddenly became charged and primed. One little spark was all it would have taken to set off the kind of explosion that could bring us both to our knees. And I was completely and utterly terrified. I couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. In fact, what I wanted was—

One day Ron Mael of Sparks casually asked Morgan what he thought of the recording we were making. Morgan gave it a thought and wisely said, ‘You have to put more sound between the speakers’, stretching his arms wide. Ron turned to me with a surprised expression on his face and said, ‘Wow.’ Morgan’s suggestion made us widen the stereo soundscape of that mix.

We were all too human then, the vast ocean surrounding us and the tiny island we inhabited. We were two small beating hearts in this world, yet what we sought now seemed enormous. What we wanted and what could be created between us, a spark of life, so small and fragile, was too overwhelming to fully comprehend. My heart beat heavily in my chest with the weight of what we were trying for.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sun will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature[.] [...] Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can do sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end.

When I say 'I will be true to you' I must mean it in spite of the formalities, instead of the formalities. If I commit adultery of the heart then I have lost you a little. The bright vision of your face will blur. I may not notice this once or twice, I may pride myself on having enjoyed those fleshy excursions in the most cerebral way, Yet I will have blunted that sharp flint that sparks between us, our desire for one another above all else.

There is no mystery to happiness. Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn - or worse, indifference - cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. he doesn’t look ahead. he lives in the present. but there’s the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. to find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning - the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life - a man must reinhabit his past, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them. What have you chosen: happiness or meaning? 'The interpretation of murder

Illumination Always there is something more to know what lingers at the edge of thought awaiting illumination as in this second-hand book full of annotations daring the margins in pencil a light stroke as if the writer of these small replies meant not to leave them forever meant to erase evidence of this private interaction Here a passage underlined there a single star on the page as in a night sky cloud-swept and hazy where only the brightest appears a tiny spark I follow its coded message try to read in it the direction of the solitary mind that thought to pencil in a jagged arrow It is a bolt of lightning where it strikes I read the line over and over as if I might discern the little fires set the flames of an idea licking the page how knowledge burns Beyond the exclamation point its thin agreement angle of surprise there are questions the word why So much is left untold Between the printed words and the self-conscious scrawl between what is said and not white space framing the story the way the past unwritten eludes us So much is implication the afterimage of measured syntax always there ghosting the margins that words their black-lined authority do not cross Even as they rise up to meet us the white page hovers beneath silent incendiary waiting

We Let the Boat Drift I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine. The grass in the field would make a second crop if early autumn rains hadn't washed the goodness out. After the night's hard frost it makes a brittle rustling as I walk. The water is utterly still. Here and there a black twig sticks up. It's five years today, and even now I can't accept what cancer did to him -- not death so much as the annihilation of the whole man, sense by sense, thought by thought, hope by hope. Once we talked about the life to come. I took the Bible from the nightstand and offered John 14: "I go to prepare a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said. "But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" And he wept. My neighbor honks and waves driving by. She counsels troubled students; keeps bees; her goats follow her to the mailbox. Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles rested across our laps; glittering drops fell randomly from their tips. The light around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant- let us get quite close before it dove, coming up after a long time, and well away from humankind

Be angry with me if you wish. I suppose I deserve it. Be whatever you have to be with me. But stop this charade and be yourself. That’s all I ask.” He stood silent for a moment, looking at me with haughty disapproval. And then he came to take the other chair. He poured himself more brandy without offering me any. I could smell that it was the apricot one we had shared in my cabin less than a year ago. He sipped it and then observed, “Be myself. And who would that be?” He set down the glass, leaned back in the chair, and then crossed his arms on his chest. “I don’t know. I wish you were the Fool,” I said quietly. “But I think we have come too far to go back to that pretense. Yet if we could, I would. Willingly.” I looked away from him. I kicked at the end of a hearth log, pushing it farther into the fire and waking new flames in a gust of sparks. “When I think of you now, I do not even know how to name you to myself. You are not Lord Golden to me. You never truly were. Yet you are not the Fool anymore, either.” I steeled myself as the words came to me, unplanned but obvious. How can the truth be so difficult to say? For a teetering instant, I feared he would misunderstand my words. Then I knew that he would know exactly what I meant by them. For years, he had understood my feelings, in the silences he kept. Before we parted company, I had to repair, somehow, the rift between us. The words were the only tool I had. They echoed of the old magic, of the power one gained when one knew someone’s true name. I was determined. And yet, the utterance still came awkward to my tongue. “You said once that I might call you ‘Beloved,’ if I no longer wished to call you ‘Fool.’” I took a breath. “Beloved, I have missed your company.” He lifted a hand and covered his mouth. Then he disguised the gesture by rubbing his chin as if he thought something through carefully. I do not know what expression he hid behind his palm. When he dropped his hand from his face, he was smiling wryly. “Don’t you think that might cause some talk about the keep?” I let his comment pass for I had no answer to it. He had spoken to me in the Fool’s mocking voice. Even as it soothes my heart, I had to wonder if it was a sham for my benefit. Did he show me what I wished to see, or what he was? “Well.” He sighed. “I suppose that if you were going to have an appropriate name for me, it would still be Fool. So let us leave it at that, Fitzy. To you, I am the Fool.” He looked into the fire and laughed softly. “It balances, I suppose. Whatever is to come for us, I will always have these words to recall now.” He looked at me and nodded gravely, as if thanking me for returning something precious to him. There were so many things I wanted to discuss with him. I wanted to review the Prince’s mission and talk about Web and ask him why he now gambled so much and what his wild extravagances meant. But I suddenly wanted to add no more words to what we had said tonight. As he had said, it balanced now. It was a hovering scale between us; I would chance no word that might tip it awry again. I nodded to him and rose slowly. When I reached the door, I said quietly, “Then, good night, Fool.” I opened the door and went out into the corridor. “Good night, beloved,” he said from his fireside chair. I shut the door softly behind myself.

And as they did so, a calm began to creep into my bones. Who knew how many women, right at that moment, were struggling to do as I did? All of us straining and grunting to bear our babies to safety. I pictured them in my mind as each wave squeezed my belly. Instead of floundering, I tried to ride each wave to its end and catch my breath in the moments of quiet between. I saw the women of the world—on wide, soft couches in golden palaces, in shaded tents on desert sands, in huts built of mud or stone, in lands that ranged to the ends of the earth—and as I braced upon my hands and knees, I felt that we surged in synchrony with one another. Like a vast constellation of stars pinpricking the night sky, I could feel us all strive together to each bring new sparks of light into the universe. I thought I could feel their support, their hands upon my back and their words of encouragement spilling into my ears as, with a final, mighty effort, my son was born.

Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something 'timeless' in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivalled only by Shakespeare in this respect. It resounded in the minds and memories of literate people, as well as of those who acquired it only by listening. From the stricken beach of Dunkirk in 1940, faced with a devil’s choice between annihilation and surrender, a British officer sent a cable back home. It contained the three words 'but if not…' All of those who received it were at once aware of what it signified. In the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian tyrant Nebuchadnezzar tells the three Jewish heretics Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that, if they refuse to bow to his sacred idol, they will be flung into a 'burning fiery furnace.' They made him an answer: 'If it be so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, o King. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.' A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it 'relevant' is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare. 'Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,' says the Book of Job. Want to try to improve that for Twitter?

We sat there in silence for a while, just taking in the moment of reflection between us. It’s funny how a woman feels different to a man. They feel nice and soft, but because there isn’t that spark of attraction there it’s more of a sisterly or maternal warmth that you feel from them. It’s wonderful. And it brings out this strange protective streak that seems borne from intuition if you have man parts, regardless of whether your man parts like other men’s parts. And I wanted to protect Fran.

Thomas heard the stamping of hooves of horses, a shout of warning, and the Institute carriage came crashing through the Portal barely remaining on all four of its wheels as it came. Balios and Xanthos looked very pleased with themselves as the carriage spun in midair and landed, with a jarring thud, at the foot of the steps. Magnus Bane was in the driver’s seat, wearing a dramatic white opera scarf and holding the reins in his right hand. He looked even more pleased with himself than the horses. “I wondered if it was possible to ride a carriage through a Portal,” he said, jumping down from the seat. “As it turns out, it is. Delightful.” The carriage doors opened, and rather unsteadily, Will, Lucie, and a boy Thomas didn’t know clambered out. Lucie waved at Thomas before leaning against the side of the carriage; she was looking rather green about the gills. Will went around the carriage to unstrap the luggage, while the unfamiliar boy—tall and slender, with straight black hair and a pretty face—put a hand on Lucie’s shoulder. Which was surprising—it was an intimate gesture, one that would be considered impolite unless the boy and girl in question were friends or relatives, or had an understanding between them. It seemed, however, unlikely that Lucie could have an understanding with someone Thomas had never seen before. He rather bristled at the thought, in an older-brother way—James didn’t seem to be here, so someone had to do the bristling for him. “I told you it would work!” Will cried in Magnus’s direction. Magnus was busy magicking the unfastened baggage to the top of the steps, blue sparks darting like fireflies from his gloved fingertips. “We should have done that on the way out!” “You did not say it would work,” Magnus said. “You said, as I recall, ‘By the Angel, he’s going to kill us all.’ “Never,” said Will. “My faith in you is unshakable, Magnus. Which is good,” he added, rocking back and forth a little, “because the rest of me feels quite shaken indeed.

I was never able to conquer the distance between persons. An animal is fixed to its here-and-now by the senses, but man manages to detach himself, to remember, to sympathize with others, to visualize their states of mind and feelings: this, fortunately, is not true. In such attempts at pseudo merging and transferral we are only able, imperfectly, darkly, to visualize ourselves. What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance of the generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling. We are like snails, each stuck to his own leaf.

We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? Formerly we should not have had a single thought in common—now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.

Dating yes. But she thinks we're, uh, more than dating." "Oh," he says, thoughtful. Then he grins. "Oh." The reason her lips are turning his favorite color is because Emma's mom thinks they've been dating and mating. The blush extends down her neck and disappears into her T-shirt. He should probably say something to make her feel more comfortable. But teasing her seems so much more fun. "Well then, the least she could do is give us some privacy-" "Ohmysweetgoodness!" She snatches her backpack from the seat and marches around her car to the driver's side. Before she can get the door unlocked, he plucks the key from her fingers and tucks it into his jeans' pocket. She moves to retrieve it, but stops when she realizes where she's about to go fishing. He's never seen her this red. He laughs. "Calm down, Emma. I'm just kidding. Don't leave." "Yeah, well, it's not funny. You should have seen her this morning. She almost cried. my mom doesn't cry." She crosses her arms again but relaxes against her door. "She cried? That's pretty insulting." She cracks a tiny grin. "Yeah, it's an insult to me. She thinks I would...would..." "More than date me?" She nods. He steps toward her and puts his hand beside her on the car, leaning in. A live current seems to shimmy up his spine. What are you doing? "But she should know that you don't even think of me like that. That it would never even cross your mind," he murmurs. She looks away, satisfying his unspoken question-it has crossed her mind. The same way it crosses his. How often? Does she feel the voltage between them, too? Who cares, idiot? She belongs to Grom. Or are you going to let a few sparks keep you from uniting the kingdoms? He pulls back, clenching his teeth. His pockets are the only safe place for his hands at the moment. "Why don't I meet her then? You think that would make her feel better?" "Um." She swipes her hair to the other side of her face. Her expression falls somewhere between shock and expectation. And she had every right to expect it-he's been entertaining the idea of kissing her for over two weeks now. She fidgets the door handle. "Yeah, it might. She won't let me go anywhere-especially with you-if she doesn't meet you first." "Should I be afraid?" She sighs. "Normally I would say no. But after this morning..." She shrugs. "How about I follow you to your house so you can drop off your car? Then she can interrogate me. When she sees how charming I am, she'll let you ride to the beach with me." She rolls her eyes. "Just don't be too charming. If you're too smooth, she'll never believe-just don't overdue it, okay?" "This is getting complicated," he says, unlocking her car. "Just remember, this is your idea and your fault. Now would be the time to back out." He chuckles and opens the door for her. "Don't lose me on the road.

Don’t you understand? It’s forbidden, Aladdin! We jinn must abide by many rules, but first among them, most important of all, we must never fall in love with a human!” He catches his breath, swallowing hard. “And do you always follow the rules?” “I—” Casting my gaze skyward, I draw a deep breath, searching for words among the stars. “It’s not about that. Do you know what kind of destruction we would cause? Have you not heard the story of your own people, how their city was destroyed, how thousands died? It was not hate that sparked the war between your people and mine, Aladdin. It was love. I held hands with Roshana the Wise and called her sister, and those words set our world on fire!” There it is. My greatest shame, laid bare. The truth lies between us like broken glass. Surely now he sees what I truly am: a betrayer, a monster, an enemy. Aladdin stares at me, his face softening. “That wasn’t your fault,” he says. “Loving someone is never wrong. And like you said, it’s not a choice. It just happens, and we’re all helpless in its power.” “That doesn’t change the fact that the consequences are disastrous. As the poets say, shake hands with a jinni, and you shake hands with death.

Colby moved his head closer. We were practically nose to nose. “You know what I think? I think you’re just as jealous as I am.” “I am not.” The heat between us sparked so hot, it felt like my entire body was on fire. “Liar.” “I’m not lying.” “Bullshit, Billie! All I’d have to do right now is move two inches closer. Once we touched, you’d be begging me to fuck you, and you know it. Maybe I should do it. We’d both get our rocks off and feel a hell of a lot better. But I won’t do that to you. Do you know why?” He moved still closer and spoke into my eyes. “Because I don’t want your body without your heart.

Empathy has its merits. It can be a great source of pleasure, involved in art and fiction and sports, and it can be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships. And it can sometimes spark us to do good. But on the whole, it’s a poor moral guide. It grounds foolish judgments and often motivates indifference and cruelty. It can lead to irrational and unfair political decisions, it can corrode certain important relationships, such as between a doctor and a patient, and make us worse at being friends, parents, husbands, and wives. I am against empathy, and one of the goals of this book is to persuade you to be against empathy too.

It's me I'm losing control of. Hundreds of sketches, and still can't get enough of your face." He traces the dimple in my chin with his thumb. "Your neck." His palm moves along my throat. "Your..." both hands find my waist and drag me off the table so we're standing toe tote. "I'm not wasting another second drawing you," he whispers against my lips, "when I can touch you instead." He presses his mouth to mine. A spark, hot and electric, jumps between us. Shock and sensation shimmer through me, aglow with his heat ad flavor. Six year of secret desire. Six years of denying that he's the orbit of my world. To think, he's been running from me, too.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.  We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!  Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend?  No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.  Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

Do you think about me?” I blurt, watching him still the minute those words leap from my lips. “When we go weeks or months without talking or seeing each other . . . do you think about me?” “Why?” His voice is cool and even, giving nothing away. I twist at my ring nervously and sigh. “I don’t know. Here. With you.” I gesture between us. “I keep forgetting about everything else in my life. Everyone else. But when we’re apart I constantly come back to y—you know what? Never mind. Just ignore me.” The silence that stretches between us is thick, alive and sparking with the heat and reality of my almost-confession. A heat that suffuses my entire body when he finally responds with, “Every fucking day, Sunny.

My name is Liv Daniels. What’s yours?” He smiled wider, nearly sending my heart into overload. “Liv. That’s a nice name. Is it short for something?” He stood and I craned my neck. He was quite tall. His tailored suit had made him appear far slighter than he was up close. He offered me a hand, again politely. I studied his hand for a moment, before taking it. It was huge and for some reason, I had the strangest feeling I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t touch his hand. I should back away and return to the idiot at my table. Somehow his hand became a fork in a road, and I knew myself; I would take the wrong road. “Olive, but I like Liv.” I reached forward and squeezed his hand, trying desperately not to let go. There was no spark or great event, like I had imagined there might be. It was a simple handshake but my heart was beating a mile a minute. I peered back up at him, overwhelmed by the height difference between us. Maybe he wasn’t my age. He was extremely tall and broad. I had to be at least five foot six in my four-inch heels, but still I craned my neck to stare into his eyes. They were midnight-blue pools that I wanted to swim in. “I’m Briton, Briton Thorlackson.” “It’s nice to meet you, Briton. I’m Liv Daniels.” He smiled and cocked his head to the side. “Yes, I believe we’ve covered that.” I laughed, but it was a strange laugh I didn’t recall laughing before. I felt my face flush red. “Yes, I believe you’re correct.

He smiled through his greasy glasses with his clear eyes. “Why do we all expect to be happy? We all came out of our mothers crying. Pain is what we do.” It reminded me of a tweet from Alain Botton several years back that sparked a Twitter chat between the two of us: “Happiness is generally impossible for longer than fifteen minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.” Indeed. The great worriers of history were the ones who saw the charging rhinoceros first, had an action plan ready to go should a tiger in camp, fretted that the basket of weeds collected that they may be poisonous. We carry this terror in our genes into our suburban lounge rooms, to our office water coolers, to our IKEA-issue bedrooms. Worry is our default position.

It's like a tangible tether between us, this consuming connection. I will her to meet my eyes, and when they do- Sparks. Electricity. Everything beautiful, everything bold, everything breathtaking- that is what I feel in her gaze. That, and terrified. Terrified of what she is doing to me. She is a vision, a nightmare, a dream. A grim reaper clad in black, come to steal my soul and my heart. I've never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly wrong for me. She is a devil. She is a deity. She is a man's downfall in human form. She is my downfall. Then her eyes drift to Kitt. The connection snaps. And I'm left feeling empty besides the jealousy growing inside me. Why did I ever think I could have her, ever think she would have me? Because beasts don't get the beauty.

Here With Me" (x Robot Koch) Caught in the riptide I was searching for the truth There was a reason I collided into you Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us now But you are always here with me Nobody knows why Nobody knows how and This feeling begins just like a spark Tossing and turning inside of your heart Exploding in the dark Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us now But you are always here with me Oh inside me I find my way Back to you Back to you Calling your name in the midnight hour Reaching for you from the endless dream So many miles between us now But you are always here with me Two words In your hands In your hearts It's whole universe You are always here with me

She has been unkind to you, no doubt, because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain – the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature; whence it came it will return, perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man – perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No, I cannot believe that: I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest – a mighty home – not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime, I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end.

A misty vision of Francesca gazed down at me from a corner of the window. She gave me her wicked-sweet smile and the stars sparked in her pale hair. I wanted to call to her, but I had no voice. I smelled the mixed scents of her, and I imagined the lush, tropical feast I'd prepare for her on our wedding night. I'd slip raw oysters between her lips. We'd share ripe figs and plump, dewy cherries. I'd offer her sweetmeats and honeyed milk, blood oranges peeled and ready, salty artichokes stripped down to the heart. I'd pry open a lobster shell and feed her tender morsels of meat, slowly, slowly. The flavors would mingle and mount and burst inside us like soft explosions. I wanted to believe it would all be possible. I imagined her staring into my eyes while she dragged a buttered artichoke leaf between her teeth and sucked on the flesh. It was good. I rode through the long, lovely night on wave upon wave of pleasure, smelling her, tasting her, touching her... I heard myself moan, and in that fierce embrace, I believed.

What’s the matter, Freckles?” he said, pressing a light kiss to the tip of my nose. “What changed?” I blurted out. He drew back. “Changed?” “You seemed like you were trying to keep distance between us before, but after last night…” “I should get a medal for managing to keep my hands off you that long.” “It was only a few days,” I reminded him dryly. “Felt like a lifetime.” “So those first kisses… you liked them?” His eyes widened. “You thought that I didn’t?” “Well, after that you didn’t touch me.” “Shit,” he swore beneath his breath and ran a hand over his head. “I liked it too much. The sparks between us are so hot, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop. I was afraid I would scare you off. Thank God I did because you’re so innocent.” Innocent? Ugh. I folded my arms across my chest. “So what changed your mind?” His smile was sexy and filled with innuendo. “I realized you could handle the heat.” I still wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t tell him that. “Well, you are definitely hot.” He grinned. He had such a big ego. “How hot?” I shook my head. “So hot your touch leaves torch marks on my skin.” He whistled between his teeth. “Damn. I’m good.

I'm sorry.' It was those two words that shattered me. Shattered me in a way I didn't know I could still be broken, a rending of every tether and leash. Stay with the High Lord. The Suriel's last warning. Stay... and live to see everything righted. A lie. A lie, as Rhys had lied to me. Stay with the High Lord. Stay. For there... the torn scraps of the mating bond. Floating on a phantom wind inside me. I grasped at them- tugged at them, as if he'd answer. Stay. Stay, stay, stay. I clung to those scraps and remnants, clawing at the voice that lurked beyond. Stay. I looked up at Tarquin, lip curling back from my teeth. Looked at Helion. And Thesan. And Beon and Kallias, Viviane weeping at his side. And I snarkled, 'Bring him back.' Blank faces. I screamed at them, 'BRING HIM BACK.' Nothing. 'You did it for me,' I said, breathing hard. 'Now do it for him.' 'You were human,' Helion said carefully. 'It is not the same-' 'I don't care. Do it.' When they didn't move, I rallied the dregs of my power, readying to rip into their minds and force them, not caring what rules or laws it broke. I wouldn't care, only if- Tarquin stepped forward. He slowly extended his hand toward me. 'For what he gave,' Tarquin said quietly. 'Today and for many years before.' And as the seed of light appeared in his palm... I began crying again. Watched it drop onto Rhys's bare throat and vanish onto the skin beneath, an echo of light flaring once. Helion stepped forward. That kernel of light in his hand flickered as it fell onto Rhys's skin. Then Kallias. And Thesan. Until only Beron stood there. Mor drew her sword and laid it on his throat. He jerked, having not seen her move. 'I do not mind making one more kill today,' she said. Beron gave her a withering glare, but shoved off the sword and strode forward. He practically chucked that fleck of light onto Rhys. I didn't care about that, either. I didn't know the spell, the power it came from. But I was High Lady. I held out my palm. Willing the spark of life to appear. Nothing happened. I took a steadying breath, remembering how it had looked. 'Tell me how,' I growled to no one. Thesan coughed and stepped forward. Explaining the core of power and on and on and I didn't care, but I listened, until- There. Small as a sunflower seed, it appeared in my palm. A bit of me- my life. I laid it gently on Rhys's blood-crusted throat. And I realised, just as he appeared, what was missing. Tamlin stood there, summoned by either the death of a fellow High Lord or one of the others around me. He was splattered in mud and gore, his new bandolier of knives mostly empty. He studied Rhys, lifeless before me. Studied all of us- the palms still out. There was no kindness on his face. No mercy. 'Please,' was all I said to him. Then Tamlin glanced between us- me and my mate. His face did not change. 'Please,' I wept. 'I will- I will give you anything-' Something shifted in his eyes at that. But not kindness. No emotion at all. I laid my head on Rhysand's chest, listening for any kind of heartbeat through that armour. 'Anything,' I breathed to no one in particular. 'Anything.' Steps scuffed on the rocky ground. I braced myself for another set of hands trying to pull me away, and dug my fingers in harder. The steps remained behind me for long enough that I looked. Tamlin stood there. Staring down at me. Those green eyes swimming with some emotion I couldn't place. 'Be happy, Feyre,' he said quietly. And dropped that final kernel of light onto Rhysand.

We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, --the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man--perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed; which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a might home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

We are all poor; but there is a difference between what Mrs. Spark intends by speaking of 'slender means', and what Stevens called our poverty or Sartre our need, besoin. The poet finds his brief, fortuitous concords, it is true: not merely 'what will suffice,' but 'the freshness of transformation,' the 'reality of decreation,' the 'gaiety of language.' The novelist accepts need, the difficulty of relating one's fictions to what one knows about the nature of reality, as his donnée. It is because no one has said more about this situation, or given such an idea of its complexity, that I want to devote most of this talk to Sartre and the most relevant of his novels, La Nausée. As things go now it isn't of course very modern; Robbe-Grillet treats it with amused reverence as a valuable antique. But it will still serve for my purposes. This book is doubtless very well known to you; I can't undertake to tell you much about it, especially as it has often been regarded as standing in an unusually close relation to a body of philosophy which I am incompetent to expound. Perhaps you will be charitable if I explain that I shall be using it and other works of Sartre merely as examples. What I have to do is simply to show that La Nausée represents, in the work of one extremely important and representative figure, a kind of crisis in the relation between fiction and reality, the tension or dissonance between paradigmatic form and contingent reality. That the mood of Sartre has sometimes been appropriate to the modern demythologized apocalypse is something I shall take for granted; his is a philosophy of crisis, but his world has no beginning and no end. The absurd dishonesty of all prefabricated patterns is cardinal to his beliefs; to cover reality over with eidetic images--illusions persisting from past acts of perception, as some abnormal children 'see' the page or object that is no longer before them --to do this is to sink into mauvaise foi. This expression covers all comfortable denials of the undeniable--freedom --by myths of necessity, nature, or things as they are. Are all the paradigms of fiction eidetic? Is the unavoidable, insidious, comfortable enemy of all novelists mauvaise foi? Sartre has recently, in his first instalment of autobiography, talked with extraordinary vivacity about the roleplaying of his youth, of the falsities imposed upon him by the fictive power of words. At the beginning of the Great War he began a novel about a French private who captured the Kaiser, defeated him in single combat, and so ended the war and recovered Alsace. But everything went wrong. The Kaiser, hissed by the poilus, no match for the superbly fit Private Perrin, spat upon and insulted, became 'somehow heroic.' Worse still, the peace, which should instantly have followed in the real world if this fiction had a genuine correspondence with reality, failed to occur. 'I very nearly renounced literature,' says Sartre. Roquentin, in a subtler but basically similar situation, has the same reaction. Later Sartre would find again that the hero, however assiduously you use the pitchfork, will recur, and that gaps, less gross perhaps, between fiction and reality will open in the most close-knit pattern of words. Again, the young Sartre would sometimes, when most identified with his friends at the lycée, feel himself to be 'freed at last from the sin of existing'--this is also an expression of Roquentin's, but Roquentin says it feels like being a character in a novel. How can novels, by telling lies, convert existence into being? We see Roquentin waver between the horror of contingency and the fiction of aventures. In Les Mots Sartre very engagingly tells us that he was Roquentin, certainly, but that he was Sartre also, 'the elect, the chronicler of hells' to whom the whole novel of which he now speaks so derisively was a sort of aventure, though what was represented within it was 'the unjustified, brackish existence of my fellow-creatures.

CHOOSE CREATIVITY: To be more creative, the first step is to decide you want to make it happen. 2. THINK LIKE A TRAVELER: Like a visitor to a foreign land, try turning fresh eyes on your surroundings, no matter how mundane or familiar. Don’t wait around for a spark to magically appear. Expose yourself to new ideas and experiences. 3. ENGAGE RELAXED ATTENTION: Flashes of insight often come when your mind is relaxed and not focused on completing a specific task, allowing the mind to make new connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. 4. EMPATHIZE WITH YOUR END USER: You come up with more innovative ideas when you better understand the needs and context of the people you are creating solutions for. 5. DO OBSERVATIONS IN THE FIELD: If you observe others with the skills of an anthropologist, you might discover new opportunities hidden in plain sight. 6. ASK QUESTIONS, STARTING WITH “WHY?”: A series of “why?” questions can brush past surface details and get to the heart of the matter. For example, if you ask someone why they are still using a fading technology (think landline phones), the answers might have more to do with psychology than practicality. 7. REFRAME CHALLENGES: Sometimes, the first step toward a great solution is to reframe the question. Starting from a different point of view can help you get to the essence of a problem. 8. BUILD A CREATIVE SUPPORT NETWORK: Creativity can flow more easily and be more fun when you have others to collaborate with and bounce ideas off.

Hear that? Living skulls! What are we doing here? What war at Troy? Does anyone care? Gods of love and hate! Aren't they the same god? All of us, all our lives, searching for the one perfect enemy- you, me, Helen, Paris, Menelaos, all those crazy Greeks! all those hapless Trojans! my dear beloved Jack! Jack and I fought all the time. I remember almost nothing but the fights - every fight a war to end all wars, you know how it goes, a righteous war, a final war, the worst fight you've ever had, you can't do this again, this time you'll get things straight one way or the other or it's over, he'll see what you mean, see you're right, fights aren't about anything except being right, are they? once and for all. You feel old. Wrong. Clumsy. You sit in two chairs on the porch. Or the kitchen. Or the front hall. Hell arrives. It's as if the war was already there, waiting, the two of you poured into it like wet concrete. The chairs you sit in are the wrong chairs, they're the chairs you never sit in because they're so uncomfortable, you keep thinking you should move but you don't, your neck hurts, you hate your neck, evening closes in. Birds move about the yard. Hell yawns. War pours out of both of you, steaming and stinking. You rush backward from it and become children, every still sentence slamming you back into the child you still are, every sentence not what you meant to say at all but the meaning keeps flaring and contracting, as sparks drop on gasoline, Fuckshit this! Fuckshit that! no reason to live. You're getting vertigo. He's being despicable. Your mother was like this. Stop whimpering. No use asking, What is this about? Don't leave the room. I have to leave the room. Breathless, blaming, I'm not blaming! How is this not blaming! Hours pass or do they. You say the same things or are they different things? Hell smells stale. Fights aren't about anything, fights are about themselves. You're stiff. You hate these chairs. Nothing is resolved. It is too dark to see. You both go to bed and doze slightly, touching slightly. In the night a nightmare. Some giant bird, or insect, some flapping thing, trying to settle on the back of your neck, you can't see what it is or get it off. Pure fear. Scream unearthly. He jerks you awake. Oh sweetie, he says. He is using his inside voice, his most inside voice. The distance between that voice and the fight voice measures your whole world. How can a voice change so. You are saved. He has saved you. He sees you saved. An easement occurs, as night dew on leaves. And yet (you think suddenly) you yourself do not possess sort of inside voice - no wonder he's lonely. You this cannot offer this refuge, cannot save him, not ever, and, although physiological in origin, or genetic, or who knows, you understand the lack is felt by him as a turning away. No one can heal this. You both decide without words to just - skip it. You grip one another. In the night, in the silence, the grip slowly loosens and silence washes you out somewhere onto a shore of sleep. Morning arrives. Troy is still there. You hear from below the clatter of everyone putting on their armour. You go to the window.

Every man and every woman is a star: we all come from the same source, made from the same stuff, and it is that stuff that also makes the rest of the universe. When we are created, we contain within ourselves a spark of the divine, a star within our bodies of flesh that is eternal and a direct reflection of every other star contained within every other person and being upon the earth and in the heavens. Together we are constellations, and we come together in groups to create patterns in the sky. We move about in the heavens and in our orbits, and some of us collide while some of us find a mutually beneficial orbit; still others unite in the most beautiful constellations that their union will be seen and remembered throughout the ages. But we are all star-children, siblings under the canopy of heaven, and we all seek reunion with that from which we came bursting into life. The stars within us speak to their source and origin, and we yearn to return to it. The journey is long, but we find every now and then in another person a star that is closest to that which we yearn for, and we see in them the source of light, and they see it in us. We join with them, in yearning and desire and passion, and through them we are completed. This is love: the joining of two stars contained in the bodies of two human beings, expressed in their bridging of the gap between them and the gap between them and the divine. Yet do not curse the gap, Lover; do not bemoan the space that you must traverse to achieve reunion and love, for it is only by virtue of this gap that you might feel yearning and desire and love at all.

The way he learned to sing was by imitating the songbirds: their warbles and whistles, their scolds. Before his stroke he'd been able to imitate certain notes and melodies of their calls, but never whole songs. I was sitting under the umbrella with him, in early March-March second, the day the Texas Declaration of Independence had been signed, when Grandfather began to sing. A black-and-white warbler had flown in right in front of us and was sitting on a cedar limb, singing-relieved, I think, that we weren't owls. Cedar waxwings moved through the brush behind it, pausing to wipe the bug juice from their bills by rubbing their beaks against branches (like men dabbing their mouths with napkins after getting up from the table). Towhees were hopping all around us, scratching through the cedar duff for pill bugs, pecking, pecking, pecking, and still the vireo stayed right there on that branch, turning its head sideways at us and singing, and Grandfather made one deep sound in his throat-like a stone being rolled away-and then he began to sing back to the bird, not just imitating the warbler's call, but singing a whole warbler song, making up warbler sentences, warbler declarations. Other warblers came in from out of the brush and surrounded us, and still Grandfather kept whistling and trilling. More birds flew in. Grandfather sang to them, too. With high little sounds in his throat, he called in the mourning doves and the little Inca doves that were starting to move into this country, from the south, and whose call I liked very much, a slightly younger, faster call that seemed to complement the eternity-becking coo of the mourning dove. Grandfather sang until dark, until the birds stopped answering his songs and instead went back into the brush to go to roost, and the fireflies began to drift out of the bushes like sparks and the coyotes began to howl and yip. Grandfather had long ago finished all the tea, sipping it between birdsongs to keep his voice fresh, and now he was tired, too tired to even fold the umbrella. .... I was afraid that with the miracle of birdsong, it was Grandfather's last night on earth-that the stars and the birds and the forest had granted him one last gift-and so I drove slowly, wanting to remember the taste, smell, and feel of all of it it, and to never forget it. But when I stopped the truck he seemed rested, and was in a hurry to get out and go join Father, who was sitting on the porch in the dark listening to one of the spring-training baseball games on the radio.

Obviously, I didn’t pursue that girl any longer, and I didn’t think about Missy much after our so-called date, mainly because I didn’t think she was interested in me. But then a few days later, one of our mutual friends from church called me. She told me Missy couldn’t stop thinking about me. I didn’t find out until several months later that the friend also called Missy that night and told her I really liked her! Neither one of us thought much about our fake date, but our friend decided to play matchmaker. The next time I saw Missy was at a youth meeting at the Kelletts’ house. Oddly enough, Missy’s family had lived in the same house for years until Mike and his family bought it. After the meeting I decided to check the credibility of our mutual friend who told me Missy was interested in me. We were outside and Missy was telling me stories of when she used to live there. I led her to the backyard and after she finished a story, I made my move. I turned and planted a juicy lip lock on her, to which she responded enthusiastically. I just wanted to see if she was interested in me and I got the answer. I have to admit I felt a spark or two during the encounter. It was nice! Missy remembers a few more details of our early dating. Missy: During our mock date, I also felt like we had a great time together. However, because we had mutually agreed to go out on this public-relations date, I would have never assumed anything more. I am not an aggressive person, and even though I felt something between us, I would have never made the first move! That’s why, when Jason dropped me off, I just got out of the truck and went inside. He obviously hadn’t asked me out because he thought I was pretty, funny, or interesting. In my mind, this was just business, whether I liked it or not. And I didn’t like it. I was definitely attracted to him, but where I came from and the way I was raised, it was the boy’s responsibility to make the first move. And he didn’t, at least not that night. When my friend called me a few days later and told me that he liked me, I was surprised and thrilled! Little did I know that she’d done the same thing to Jason. The night after our first kiss at our youth minister’s house, I remember trying not to get my hopes up. I knew about his reputation of dating as many girls as possible, and I thought there was a great chance that I would never hear from him again. However, I decided to go outside my comfort zone and give him a call. One of his mom’s friends answered the phone and when I asked to speak to Jason, she told me he was on his way to his girlfriend’s house. I hung up, feeling dejected. About fifteen minutes later, he showed up at my house. I was the girlfriend!

Mark swings his own door open and meets us by the tailgate. "Why don't we ask Emma who she's coming with? I mean, it's her choice, right?" The look Galen gives me is clear: Take care of this, or I will. Or maybe it's more like, It would be my pleasure to take care of this. Either way, I don't want Mark taken care of. Standing between them, the testosterone-to-air ratio is almost suffocating. If I pick Galen, the chances of Mark ever calling me again are as good as Galen eating a whole cheesecake by himself. If I choose Mark, the changes of Galen not wielding his built-in brass knuckles are as good as Rayna giving someone a compliment. My desire to salvage this date with Mark is almost as strong as my desire to salvage his face from certain disfigurement. But salvaging the date as opposed to his face would be selfish in the long run. I sigh in defeat. "I'm sorry, Mark." Mark lets out a gust of air. "Ouch." Scratching the back of his neck, he chuckles. "I guess I should be more superstitious, huh?" He's right. I screwed this up. I should have salvaged the date, his pride. And I should have broken Galen's Royal nose with my own Syrena fist. I turn to His Highness. "Galen, could you give me a minute please? You'll have the next hour to talk to me since you're taking me straight home." Without a word, Galen nods and walks away. I can't quite meet Mark's eyes when I say, "I'm so sorry. I don't know what his deal is. He never acts like this." Except that time he beat Toraf like a stepchild on the beach when he kissed me. But only because Toraf betrayed Rayna. Right? Mark smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Can't say I blame him. I can already tell you're worth it. I just never had the guts to ask you out. Chloe threatened my life. You know that chick could hit like a man, right? She said you were too good for me. I think she was right." "Wh...what? Chloe knew you liked me?" "Yeah. She never told you? Course not. She thought I was a player." I not, still too stunned that my best friend also acted as my bodyguard without me knowing. "She did think you were a player. And she couldn't definitely hit like a man." "That's what my friend Jax says anyway." Then a little lower, "Geez, Galen's watching me like a hawk right now. He has serial-killer eyes, you know that?" I giggle. "What do you think he'd do if I kissed you good-bye on the cheek?" he whispers conspiratorially. "Don't worry, I'll protect you." He has no idea how serious I am. As he leans in, I brace myself. At the slightest spark of electricity, I'm prepared to turn around with my fists up. But the lightning doesn't strike. Galen is behaving for now. As Mark pulls away from his barely there peck, he sighs. "Do me a favor," he whispers. "Mmm?" "Keep my number. Give me a call if he screws up again." I smile. "I will, I promise. I had a good time tonight." Did the date and Mark's face get salvaged? Do I have a chance to redeem myself with him? He chuckles. "Yeah, glad we got to drive here from Middle Point together. next time, we'll make it a real adventure and take the bus. See you at school, Emma." "Bye.

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparking sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love’s happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life’s high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman’s soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father’s eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone’s unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night– You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up– go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darking trees for us, Yet where we walked the city’s street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel’s wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem” All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of the sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love's happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life's high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman's soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father's eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone's unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night-- You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up--go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darkling trees for us, Yet where we walked the city's street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel's wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

An upbeat song played over the loudspeaker, and everyone's attention focused on the Jumbotron above the basketball court. "It's time for the Bulls' Kiss Cam. So, pucker up for your sweetie and kiss them." The camera found an older couple in their fifties. The man pulled his wife, I assumed, in for a quick peck on the lips. "Aww. That is so sweet," Trina said. She proceeded to yank poor Owen to his seat in case the spotlight landed on them. She'd do just about anything to get on television, even if it meant not kissing Owen tonight to do so. "That is so staged," I said and sneaked a quick peek at my phone, seeing if he messaged me back. He didn’t. "Really?" she countered and slapped my arm. Once I glanced her way, she pointed towards the large screen looming above. On the screen was Sebastian and me as the camera had just so happened to find us. It stayed there zooming closer. And closer. And closer. "Come on," the announcer called out, prodding us. "Just one kiss won't hurt." He had no idea what he was asking. A kiss would initiate feelings I couldn't avoid any longer. I momentarily forgot how to breathe as the song, “Kiss the Girl” from the Little Mermaid hummed at my lips. Not the best choice, but still. Everything became much worse once my giant moved into view, smiling my favorite smile. Sebastian inched closer; eyebrow cocked to dare me."No pressure or anything." I was quiet for a moment before whispering, "Game on, buddy." My eyes closed a few heartbeats shy of Sebastian's lips meeting mine. His hands rose, cupping my cheeks to keep me from pulling away. Like that was going to happen. Sebastian’s mouth moved against mine, and I conceded, kissing him in return. He tasted sweet and minty, like the home I’d been missing. The kiss turned from soft and tame to fierce and wantingas if neither of us could get enough. And already, I considered myself a goner. Everything became a haze. My heart thumped so wildly against my chest, I swore Sebastian could hear. The crowd surrounding us was whistling and cheering us on, and it only kept gaining momentum as the moments passed. The noise quickly faded until it was as if we were the only two people in the room. We could have been the only two people on earth. "Okay, guys." Trina tapped my shoulder, garnering my attention. "Camera has moved on now." That was our cue to separate, and I slowly drew away from Sebastian. He, in turn, slipped his hand to the back of my neck, holding me here. "Don't," he sighed against my lips. I didn't budge another inch. I didn't want to. Sebastian rewarded me by deepening the kiss. Dear God. There were sparks. My stomach flipped. My toes curled. My body warmed. Every single inch of me only wanted one thing and one thing only. If this continued for too much longer, it was easy to guess my new favorite hobby: Kissing Sebastian Freaking Birch. Needing some air, I pressed my palm flat against his chest. This time he released me as we both were breathless. Sebastian's eyes carefully studied me. He kept staring as if he could read my heart, my mind. And for those brief few seconds, I honestly didn't believe there were any secrets between us. His gaze shifted as he gauged what to do next, and I had no freaking idea where we went from here. We'd done it now. We crossed that line, and there was no way of ever going back.

Fuck, she was even hotter when she was furious. I seriously wouldn't have minded her taking that anger out on my body all night long. I'd be more than happy to angry fuck her until her body bent and bowed and finally gave in to the power play between us. I'd force her beneath me physically as well as with my power and maybe she'd find she liked it there just fine. Or maybe she'd stab me to death and cut my cock off for good measure because the look she was aiming my way said that was a whole lot more likely than me getting to spend the night ruining her. But it was a damn nice fantasy to indulge in for a few moments. ... She gave me a look of utter contempt and it made my cock throb as her nearness just compounded the desire I was already feeling for her and made me get all kinds of insane ideas about what I'd like to do with this little princess if I got her to myself for long enough. She made no attempt to cover herself, no sign of shame in her frosty features as she stalked forward to claim her key, a sneer touching those edible lips of hers. Her jaw was tight with rage which she was doing nothing to hide and as she reached out to snatch the key from my hand, I couldn't help but ache to bring her closer, draw her nearer, see just how far she'd go in this denial of my power over her. Her fingers curled around the brass key, but I didn't release it, instead using my hold on it to tug her a step closer so that only a breath of space divided our bodies. I looked down at her from my imposing height, dominating her space with the bulk of my body and making sure she took in every last inch of height I had over her. “Of course, if you’d rather just come on up to my room, I can give you a real welcome to the House of Fire,” I suggested my gaze dropping down to her body, the noticeable bulge in my pants making it clear enough how much I meant that offer. I probably shouldn't have been making it at all, but the beast in me couldn't help myself. Dragons saw something they wanted and they took it. And I hadn't seen something I wanted as much as this girl in as long as I could remember. Our gazes collided and the heat there was almost strong enough to burn, the tension between us crackling so loudly I was surprised the whole room couldn't hear it. But then her gaze shuttered and her lips pursed, her eyes dropping down to take me in, my skin buzzing everywhere they landed as I could feel the want in her while she assessed me. But as those deep green eyes met mine again and I gave her a knowing smirk, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I didn't know if she was going to bow to this heat between us or just stoke the flames, and the fact that I didn't know had my heart thumping in anticipation deep in my chest. She shifted an inch closer to me, tilting her mouth towards my ear and making my flesh spark with the need to take her, own her, destroy her in all the best ways. But just as my cock began to get overexcited at the prospect of all the ways I could make her scream for me given enough time, she spoke and it wasn't in the sultry purr I'd been expecting, her voice coming out loud enough for everyone to hear instead. “I wouldn’t come near you even if someone held a knife to my heart and told me that the world would end if I didn’t,” she snarled, snatching the key out of my hand as my surprise at her words made me forget to keep my grip tight enough to keep it. “So why don’t you take a long, hard look while you can. Because I can promise you, you won’t be seeing this again.”(Darius POV)

I don’t…believe you,” she lied, her blood running wild through her veins. His gleaming gaze impaled her. “Then believe this.” And suddenly his mouth was on hers. This was not what she’d set out to get from him. But oh, the joy of it. The heat of it. His mouth covered hers, seeking, coaxing. Without breaking the kiss, he pushed her back against the wall, and she grabbed for his shoulders, his surprisingly broad and muscular shoulders. As he sent her plummeting into unfamiliar territory, she held on for dear life. Time rewound to when they were in her uncle’s garden, sneaking a moment alone. But this time there was no hesitation, no fear of being caught. Glorying in that, she slid her hands about his neck to bring him closer. He groaned, and his kiss turned intimate. He used lips and tongue, delving inside her mouth in a tender exploration that stunned her. Enchanted her. Confused her. Something both sweet and alien pooled in her belly, a kind of yearning she’d never felt with Edwin. With any man but Dom. As if he sensed it, he pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching hers, full of surprise. “My God, Jane,” he said hoarsely, turning her name into a prayer. Or a curse? She had no time to figure out which before he clasped her head to hold her for another darkly ravishing kiss. Only this one was greedier, needier. His mouth consumed hers with all the boldness of Viking raiders of yore. His tongue drove repeatedly inside in a rhythm that made her feel all trembly and hot, and his thumbs caressed her throat, rousing the pulse there. Thank heaven there was a wall to hold her up, or she was quite sure she would dissolve into a puddle at his feet. Because after all these years apart, he was riding roughshod over her life again. And she was letting him. How could she not? His scent of leather and bergamot engulfed her, made her dizzy with the pleasure of it. He roused urges she’d never known she had, sparked fires in places she’d thought were frozen. Then his hands swept down her possessively as if to memorize her body…or mark it as belonging to him. Belonging to him. Oh, Lord! She shoved him away. How could she have fallen for his kisses after what he’d done? How could she have let him slip that far under her guard? Never again, curse him! Never! For a moment, he looked as stunned by what had flared between them as she. Then he reached for her, and she slipped from between him and the wall, panic rising in her chest. “You do not have the right to kiss me anymore,” she hissed. “I’m engaged, for pity’s sake!” As soon as her words registered, his eyes went cold. “It certainly took you long enough to remember it.” She gaped at him. “You have the audacity to…to…” She stabbed his shoulder with one finger. “You have no business criticizing me! You threw me away years ago, and now you want to just…just take me up again, as if nothing ever happened between us?” A shadow crossed his face. “I did not throw you away. You jilted me, remember?” That was the last straw. “Right. I jilted you.” Turning on her heel, she stalked back toward the road. “Just keep telling yourself that, since you’re obviously determined to believe your own fiction.” “Fiction?” He hurried after her. “What are you talking about?” “Oh, why can’t you just admit what you really did and be done with it?” Grabbing her by the arm, he forced her to stop just short of the street. He stared into her face, and she could see when awareness dawned in his eyes. “Good God. You know the truth. You know what really happened in the library that night.” “That you manufactured that dalliance between you and Nancy to force me into jilting you?” She snatched her arm free. “Yes, I know.” Then she strode out of the alley, leaving him to stew in his own juices.

After Georgie, something had changed in our marriage, and there was nowhere solid to put the blame. We were almost forty, and simultaneously our marriage had - I don' know - thickened, agglutinated, become oatmeal-like. Differences between us that had once provided sparks now seemed inefficient. Was there love? Yes, yes - but at the margins. At the center, there was administration.

Parts of the works were being demolished prior to privatisation. For as far as I could see, cutting torches fizzed and flared and sent up showers of sparks from among the buckled girders. Heaps of waste smouldered in the mud between the huge corrugated sheds, giving off an acrid, low-lying smoke through which I could make out gantries crawling with oxygen pipes; muddy yards where the Mercedes, Volvo and Magirus Deutz trucks were parked in rows; the venous curves of a disused railway line – a bright, almost luminous green moss grew between its dull rails. As we walked past the shed now directly below us, I had seen what I thought were huge steel wheels piled on top of one another. They were already beginning to rust. This reminded me of how, at the turn of the eighteenth century, stone from France became cheaper than Hathersage grit. The grindstone industry collapsed, and work stopped in a day. Half-finished millstones are still scattered around at the base of the Peak District edges, for tourists to eat their lunch off.

I can’t believe that after everything that’s happened, that spark is still alive between us.” I hear the words leave me. “No, Princess. It’s not a spark. It’s a wildfire.

What do you need,” I growl into her hair. “I need to feel something other than the sensation of running without ever fucking stopping for once in my life,” she chokes. She lifts her head, her eyes big and so full of pain and need as they look into mine. “I need to feel something that isn’t sadness. Please.” My hand lifts, cupping her face possessively. Something dark and voracious flickers, sparks, and catches between us like wildfire. Like a force of fucking nature. A compulsion. The crackle of a storm cloud right before it thunders. “Please,” she chokes. “Please, let me feel—” She whimpers, moaning as my mouth captures hers. As my lips bruise hers so hard as to make her feel it always. “Please,” she whispers into my mouth as I scoop her into my arms and storm down the hall to my bedroom. “Make it hurt.

Sir, you know I’m a rancher. Most of the people I represent are like me, struggling to make cows grow in what’s turning into a desert. The country out there is all burnt up from grass fires. Lot of times you can’t breathe because of the dust. Sometimes you can’t even see. We’re losing the battle.” “Climate change,” the speaker said. “Well, yeah. I didn’t think you were supposed to say that.” “What we say in private is between us. We all know what’s up. TXOGA has us by the nuts,” the speaker said, referencing the Texas Oil and Gas Association, the one lobby that had more influence than L. D. Sparks. “The question is what do you”—here he pointed at Sonny—“propose to do about it?” “Hold still, please,” the sculptor fussed. “Desalination,” Sonny said, expecting the usual eye roll. Instead, the speaker said, “Tell me about it.

Our fourth chakra is our heart chakra that gives pure love, compassion, good parent quality, self-confidence and detachment. Our spirit is most importantly in our heart, and the spirit is nothing but love. Its ruling planet is Venus, which represents the signs of Taurus and Libra as love, beauty, art and rule. A Venus which works well creates harmony and beauty wherever it is. It makes you feel nice to people. Strong Venus in a birth chart adds significant beauty to a male. The uniqueness stretches out from a person's inner nature and focuses on a person's behavior and attitude. Benevolence and sweetness encourage us to create positive emotions in people and help us transform them. When our heart opens, we become more connected with our subconscious. The spirit of pure love that is ignited in our heart naturally extends to our surroundings and also sparks similar emotions among the people around us. •       The Vishuddhi is called the fifth Chakra. This chakra located in our throat area helps us to feel that we are part and parcel of the whole. When this chakra is open we feel that we are a part of the whole. When this chakra is open, we experience the sensation of being one with the universe, with nature and with other humans. Saturn is the ruling planet for that center of energy. Saturn also rules the Capricorn and Aquarius signs. In our birth chart difficult aspects of Saturn make us feel lonely in life. Saturn is something of a disciplined teacher. Saturn's position in our birth chart offers us life field checks and lets us develop our shortcomings. It reveals the human character parts which need to be completed. It sometimes limits, creates hurdles and makes initiatives useless. Saturn is doing this so we are learning the lesson it is trying to teach. Once we learn our limitations and discover them, Saturn gives us stability, robustness and detachment. The fifth chakra also governs the ability within us to discern between right and wrong. During moments that Saturn is questioning us, with the aid of this chakra, we will use our power of judgment to realize what is right and wrong. This center of energy also gives us a state of witness. This allows us to enjoy life while playing our role and as a drama experience all the tragedy and difficulties. In this game the earth, the whole universe and planets play a role and put it on stage. Saturn creates a pessimistic personality when functioning badly, who cannot see the good things in life and feels sorry for himself.

Understanding Your Emotions Our emotions are wonderful tools. Being in touch with them allows us to experience life to the fullest. When we are aware, our emotions can teach us a variety of things. They can show us what we like and don't like, what's really important to us as opposed to what isn't, and they can provide a wonderful guide to discovering the work we are meant to do in the Dream of the Planet. For instance, when you are faced with an important decision and you are unsure of which course of action to take, one thing that can help you is to focus on how you feel about the options presented instead of being consumed with the stories your narrators are spouting. As you get to know yourself better, this type of discernment becomes a very effective tool for recognizing what you really want. In popular vernacular, this would be referred to as “listening to your heart instead of your head,” but it's really the Mastery of Self in action. Your emotions can also show you where you are still holding on to attachments and reveal any remaining fears and self-doubts from past domestications that you haven't yet released. Sometimes you won't even realize you have an attachment until an event triggers an emotional reaction in you. Anytime you feel a burst of anger, frustration, guilt, shame, or any number of other negative emotions, that's your cue to look within and see what is happening. Ask yourself questions like, Where is this feeling coming from? When have I experienced this before? What is the source of this feeling? Once you are aware of what's happening inside, you are able to calm yourself and stop the downward spiral before you lose control. While anger is a common emotional reaction, it is by no means the only one. Shutting down, being defensive or passive-aggressiveness, feeling guilty or remorseful, or any unhelpful reactions in between are additional ways in which you can react emotionally and lose awareness of your Authentic Self. Whether your tendency is to be consumed with anger and rage or to sulk silently in the corner, the underlying cause of all of these emotional reactions is always fear, the tool of conditional love. When fear overtakes you and sparks an emotional reaction, your attachments and domestications are now running the show, and unconditional love is cast to the wayside. Becoming a Master of Self is about noticing when you begin to have an emotional reaction and asking yourself immediately, “What am I afraid of?” The quicker you can identify and release the fear, the faster you become re-grounded in the Authentic Self. Any emotional reaction you experience is yours, not anyone else's, and consequently it is here to teach you something about yourself. The Master of Self sees this as an opportunity to learn and grow, and in doing so you can deal with these emotions before they lead to an outburst that causes harm to your Personal Dream or the Dream of the Planet.

Q’s face twisted; he captured my face between hot hands. “What are you?” he clipped, face hard and unreadable. The question anchored me and I looked into his pale ferocious eyes. I knew the answer he wanted. “I’m yours.” He sucked in a heavy breath, body jerking. “Say it again, but not in English.” Q intoxicated me. My lips parted, and I wanted to stay captured by him, forever. An ancient connection linked us together. I looked into his soul—it churned with agony and demons, but he wasn’t evil. Q dropped his gaze to my lips. “Je suis à toi.” Something feral heated his features; he pressed his mouth against mine in one fast kiss. “It means, I am yours.” My breath stuttered as power sliced, deep and fast, igniting broken parts of me with sparks. His allure, his power, all magnified to fist around my stomach. In the dark recess of my brain, I translated his words to him being mine. The power trip the little words gave was indescribable. No wonder he wanted me to say it. I was drunk on them. He was mine. Mine. What life did Q live, needing to hear such a strong affirmation? What ghosts haunted him? Q tightened his fingers, biting into my jaw. “Say it.” With his command, I fumbled into the victim I was, the rape survivor, the slave. The brief sense of ownership left me bereft. Q twisted my nipple under the wet material of my bra. His cruelty reddened my skin and fight skittered into yielding. He sent me reeling into needful and damaged. I’d been so close to finding strength, but he took it away in an instant. Fresh tears spilled as I whispered, “Je suis à toi.” Q sighed heavily, resting his forehead on mine. “Will you run again? Will you leave the one man who wants you above all others? Leave his protection?” His voice wavered with regret, resignation, as if he expected me to run, and already suffered loneliness. My eyes popped wide; I shook my head. “No, I won’t run again.” He looked with half-hooded eyes. “How can you be so sure? Don’t I scare you? Repulse you?” He never repulsed me, and fear where Q was concerned was an aphrodisiac. But I couldn’t tell him. “I will never escape. Je suis à toi.

You shouldn’t change your plans for me. For this. You’re a nice person, Sarah. You deserve a good guy who wants a relationship, not a player like me.” Braden had no way of knowing it, but he’d just poked the bear. Being called nice was a slap in the face. I wasn’t just a nice girl who studied hard and baked brownies. I was a multifaceted woman who could make plans and change them when she felt like it. I wasn’t the workaholic, responsible drone my family expected me to be. I had cravings and desires, and one of them was standing in front of me, acting like he knew everything. I wanted to punch him. Then kiss him for a long, long time.

You don’t dictate what I deserve. Or what I want.” I spoke quietly and folded my arms. His face reddened and he scrubbed a hand over his features again, exasperated. “Jesus, woman, do you really disagree with me or do you just like to argue?” I licked my lips. “I do like to argue. But I don’t want to argue about this.” His eyes heated, pupils dilating. I watched them lazily roam over me. “What do you want, Sarah?” His voice was low and husky. It was a white flag surrender.

You’ve got me. And I’m not letting you go.

Lucas stopped inches from my fingers, but he was still too close. "And I don't?" he whispered. "I get you more than anyone ever has, and you know it. There's still something between us. You can't ignore that." A primal spark blazed behind the cool blue of his eyes. "Andy." I didn't want him to say my name like that, like it was all he needed to remind me of an entire summer of longing that I'd tried so hard to forget. He didn't get to do this to me. Not this year.

Embrace Efficiency, Elevate Flavor: Smart Kitchen Tools for Culinary Adventurers The kitchen, once a realm of necessity, has morphed into a playground of possibility. Gone are the days of clunky appliances and tedious prep work. Enter the age of the smart kitchen tool, a revolution that whispers efficiency and shouts culinary liberation. For the modern gastronome, these tech-infused gadgets are not mere conveniences, but allies in crafting delectable adventures, freeing us to savor the journey as much as the destination. Imagine mornings when your smart coffee maker greets you with the perfect brew, prepped by the whispers of your phone while you dream. Your fridge, stocked like a digital oracle, suggests recipes based on its ever-evolving inventory, and even automatically orders groceries you've run low on. The multi-cooker, your multitasking superhero, whips up a gourmet chili while you conquer emails, and by dinnertime, your smart oven roasts a succulent chicken to golden perfection, its progress monitored remotely as you sip a glass of wine. But efficiency is merely the prologue. Smart kitchen tools unlock a pandora's box of culinary precision. Smart scales, meticulous to the milligram, banish recipe guesswork and ensure perfect balance in every dish. Food processors and blenders, armed with pre-programmed settings and self-cleaning prowess, transform tedious chopping into a mere blip on the culinary radar. And for the aspiring chef, a sous vide machine becomes a magic wand, coaxing impossible tenderness from the toughest cuts of meat. Yet, technology alone is not the recipe for culinary bliss. For those who yearn to paint with flavors, smart kitchen tools are the brushes on their canvas. A connected recipe platform becomes your digital sous chef, guiding you through each step with expert instructions and voice-activated ease. Spice racks, infused with artificial intelligence, suggest unexpected pairings, urging you to venture beyond the familiar. And for the ultimate expression of your inner master chef, a custom knife, forged from heirloom steel and lovingly honed, becomes an extension of your hand, slicing through ingredients with laser focus and lyrical grace. But amidst the symphony of gadgets and apps, let us not forget the heart of the kitchen: the human touch. Smart tools are not meant to replace our intuition but to augment it. They free us from the drudgery, allowing us to focus on the artistry, the love, the joy of creation. Imagine kneading dough, the rhythm of your hands mirroring the gentle whirring of a smart bread machine, then shaping a loaf that holds the warmth of both technology and your own spirit. Or picture yourself plating a dish, using smart portion scales for precision but garnishing with edible flowers chosen simply because they spark joy. This, my friends, is the symphony of the smart kitchen: a harmonious blend of tech and humanity, where efficiency becomes the brushstroke that illuminates the vibrant canvas of culinary passion. Of course, every adventure, even one fueled by smart tools, has its caveats. Interoperability between gadgets can be a tangled web, and data privacy concerns linger like unwanted guests. But these challenges are mere bumps on the culinary road, hurdles to be overcome by informed choices and responsible data management. After all, we wouldn't embark on a mountain trek without checking the weather, would we? So, embrace the smart kitchen, dear foodies! Let technology be your sous chef, your precision tool, your culinary muse. But never forget the magic of your own hands, the wisdom of your palate, and the joy of a meal shared with loved ones. For in the end, it's not about the gadgets, but the memories we create around them, the stories whispered over simmering pots, and the laughter echoing through a kitchen filled with the aroma of possibility.

I believe the future between us is what we’ve been waiting for. I just need you next to me to make that happen.

Sontag said, "Life is a movie, death is a photograph." My argument with Sontag is this: a photograph freezes a capsule of time, but it also fires the imagination. In front of the camera, people invent new selves, enact their passion and desire and fancy. Faced with the object of the photograph, people freely interpret what they see, use it as a doorway into the past, sparking new imaginings." (The Light Between Us)

And I was determined to show her that this spark between us was worth fighting for.

Her walls close around me, greedily trying to suck me in as I make my slow steady invasion. The remnants of her orgasm pulse around me with a squeeze that steals the last shred of self control, and I thrust in to the hilt. A muffled scream of pleasure and need rips from her throat. It’s never been this good before. This right. It wouldn’t surprise me to see actual sparks flying between us to match the internal ones setting every nerve ending on fire. Each thrust brings us closer. There’s a feverish edge to the passion that’s strange and familiar at the same time. I know this woman. I know her to her very soul, and now I’m getting to know her body as well. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

You knew I was there from the start." He didn't flinch. "Yeah, I knew." I didn't want to find that titillating or hot. But I did. Damn it. But I was an actress. I could fake it. "Well, then I guess I have to ask, Did you expect me to turn away from a show so freely offered?" When he blinked in surprise, I tutted in reproach. "Who would suspect you were an exhibitionist. Tell me----did it get you off knowing I was watching? Or would anyone looking on do the trick?" Lucian huffed out a laugh, as though he couldn't believe my audacity but kind of liked it. His lids lowered as his gaze slid back to my mouth. And everything went hazy, the air between us too heavy. The rumble of his voice rippled along my skin, licked up my trembling thighs. "Do you really want me to answer that, Em? Knowing you might not like my reply?" Oh, the arrogance. I sucked in a breath, ready to tell him off. His eyes glinted with hot sparks, as though he wanted me to lay into him, like it would be the excuse he needed to do the same. But it wasn't violence I pictured. It was sex. Frantic, sweaty, angry...

lean forward, closing the space between us. Right before our lips touch, a spark jumps between us, stinging my mouth. Then I kiss her, and the jolt is drowned in the shocking warmth and softness of her mouth. Every nerve comes alive. The sensation is so much stronger than I remember, overwhelming me.

there would be no sparks between us, only a conflagration.

She made me feel something more than attraction. I couldn’t explain it. Had never been able to figure out that spark between us from the moment she sat down next to me in the pub five years ago. I didn’t want to figure it out. I wanted to run from it. Instead, I’d bloody married her.

What impression did I make on you?” The question sparked and hissed like a live wire between us, swallowing enough oxygen to make every breath a struggle. Christian set his glass down with a precision that pulsed in my veins. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.” Surprise tinged with hurt bloomed in my chest. “That bad?” From what I remembered, our first meeting had been fairly standard. I’d said a total of two words to him. “No.” The word was a rough caress against my skin. “That good.

He finally let his guard down with me that day. He showed me his smile, his laugh, his doubts, his trust. I hadn’t realized it then—and I would have fervently denied it for weeks that followed—but that was the moment the spark between us became a flame, the beginnings of our inevitable blaze.

A few minutes later, we stumble into his bedroom. He kicks the door shut behind us and shoves me up against it. With a hand fisted in my hair and another on my rear, he kisses me like we’re on the eve of the apocalypse. Keeping time with the pounding of my heart, the floor vibrates with the beat from the music downstairs. I strain against him, trying to get closer. Needing to be closer. Wanting to feel him move through me.` This is what was missing in my other relationship. This unquenchable fire that feels like Rider and I could burn down the whole house with the electricity sparking between us. And tonight, I want to burn.

Thank you!” Cami throws herself into Cal’s arms. Cal blinks twice at my smile before returning my grin with one of his own. Before I know it, he is swooping me into his arms too, smushing me against Cami. The added weight throws him off-balance and the three of us crash against the carpet, with him taking the brunt of the weight. Cami giggling between us makes both Cal and me laugh too. Cami wiggles free and takes off to claim her bedroom. Cal’s arms remain wrapped around me and adjust my weight so I lie on top of him. I suck in a breath as his hand runs down my spine, leaving sparks behind. His hand pauses on the small of my back. “I want to make the two of you laugh like that for the rest of our lives.

the spark that ignites between us burrows deep into my heart.

He looks like shit, so I say, laughing a little, unreasonably delighted by the shape he makes against the sky, “You look like shit.” He makes a small, harassed sound. Then he kisses me. If I had ever imagined Arthur Starling kissing me (I have), I would have thought it would be quick and awkward: a passionless, pent-up affair that would leave me irritable for a week but otherwise cold. This is, after all, a man who put his fist through a window rather than have an emotion about me. At first, going by the taut lines of his face, I think I’m right. But then his hands find the sides of my face and his lips crush into mine with a bruising, furious heat, almost cruel in its intensity, and I think: I should have known. I should have known that he would only touch me if he’d come to the end of all his tight-held restraint. I should have known there would be no sparks between us, only a conflagration.

I wish he would kiss me. I wish he would hold me in his arms and press his lips to mine and devour me. Maybe not right here, right now, but soon, just so I know that I’m not crazy. That I’m not the only one who feels this spark of need between us. I wish he would kiss me, just to show me he feels it too – this visceral need to be near him. To be wanted by him. Held by him. Touched by him.

Why should I write to the newspapers instead of to the machines themselves, why not summon a monster meeting of machines, place the steam engine in the chair, and hold a council of war?” asked the anonymous “mad correspondent.” “I answer, the time is not yet ripe for this. . . . Our plan is to turn man’s besotted enthusiasm to our own advantage, to make him develop us to the utmost, and find himself enslaved unawares. “My object is to do my humble share towards pointing out what is the ultimatum, the ne plus ultra of perfection in mechanized development,” the writer continued, “even though that end be so far off that only a Darwinian posterity can arrive at it. I therefore venture to suggest that we declare machinery and the general development of the human race to be well and effectually completed when—when—when—Like the woman in white, I had almost committed myself of my secret. Nay, this is telling too much. I must content myself with disclosing something less than the whole. I will give a great step, but not the last. We will say then that a considerable advance has been made in mechanical development, when all men, in all places, without any loss of time, are cognizant through their senses, of all that they desire to be cognizant of in all other places, at a low rate of charge, so that the back country squatter may hear his wool sold in London and deal with the buyer himself—may sit in his own chair in a back country hut and hear the performance of Israel in Ægypt at Exeter Hall—may taste an ice on the Rakaia, which he is paying for and receiving in the Italian opera house Covent garden. Multiply instance ad libitum—this is the grand annihilation of time and place which we are all striving for, and which in one small part we have been permitted to see actually realised.”67 This letter, bearing the stamp of Samuel Butler in style if not in name, was signed “Lunaticus.” One hundred years after Erasmus Darwin gathered his circle of Lunaticks in the English Midlands, a strand of telegraph wire was uncoiled at the antipodes of the earth. Sparked by the transit of a few pulses of electromagnetic code over this embryonic fragment of a net, Samuel Butler foresaw the evolution, perhaps not so far off as he imagined, of that phenomenon, somewhere between mechanism and organism, now manifested as the World Wide Web.

The magnetic spark between us—I don’t know if it can last, but I’m willing to chase it into the morning light.

We sat on the grass at the edge of the lake, alone together. Her knee touched mine, and it was all I could think about, but neither of us moved to put inches between us. And there it was, finally, the spark I'd been waiting for all week, fear, awe, beauty, all at once. There was more holiness in the cricket cry, in the starlight, in the silver, moon-painted waters than I had felt all week. Loons sang to us, beautiful, bittersweet songs, and wandering fireflies lit the dark with golden sparks. No one from camp could see us. No one from church could touch us. And I thought, No other heaven could ever compare to this one. It doesn't want us to grovel. It doesn't need us to change.

If we listen only to the smartest person in the room, we miss out on discovering the smarts that the rest of the room has to offer. Our greatest potential isn’t always hidden inside us—sometimes it sparks between us, and sometimes it comes from outside our team altogether.

I’m going all in on proving to you that we might as well admit this thing between us and knock down a wall or two. If you’re going to be a little slower to step up and be a team player, then so be it.

But the moment Frederick buried his face between my legs it was clear there was nothing in the world he would rather be doing than this. He tasted and licked, breathing me in as he took his sweet, deliberate time. My fingertips found purchase on his shoulders, and I clung to them for dear life as he teased me, the wool of the sweater he still wore deliciously smooth against my bare legs. My head fell back against the pillow again and I writhed on the mattress, bucking up towards his mouth in search of greater friction, needing more. But he wouldn't be rushed. His hands gripped my hips harder as my body sought to move against him, keeping me pinned helplessly to the mattress in the exact spot he wanted me. I whined in delicious agony as he traced the shape of my clit with the achingly soft flat of his tongue, dancing around the direct contact my body was screaming for. I could feel how wet I was growing, could hear the sharp keening sounds I was making as if from a distance. But he would not be rushed by my desperation as he kissed, and lapped, and tasted. "Frederick." I tangled my fingers in his soft hair and tugged, moaning. I was going to pieces. I was out of my head with need. "Please." At my naked plea something must have broken inside him. He groaned, long and loud, the reverberations from it sending sparks of sensation rocketing down my spine--- And then, at last, his tongue was right there, licking me senseless as his lips closed around my clit. He sucked gently, then with greater pressure, and the room, the bed beneath us, fell away. The world collapsed down to a pinprick, nothing existing anymore outside of Frederick and the exquisite, cresting pleasure. "Oh, god," I moaned, bucking against his mouth. I was outside of myself, outside of reason. "Please---" My orgasm came upon me like a tidal wave--- devastating, and all-consuming, my toes curling with the spine-melting pleasure of it. Distantly, I could feel Frederick shifting on the bed, kissing his way up my body, whispering praise to my bare legs, my stomach, my breasts.

The very concept that dragons can recall their previous lives is so hard for humans to grasp. I should so dearly love to listen to whatever you wished to tell me, and to make a complete record of all you recall. Such conversations alone would make a journey worthwhile! Oh, please, say that you will!” A taut quiet followed her words. “Alise,” Sedric said warningly, “I think you should come away from the railing.” But she clung there, even though she, too, could feel the wave of uneasiness that swept through the ship. The smoothness went out of the sailing; the deck under her feet shifted subtly. Surely it was her imagination that the wind flowed more chill than it had? Paragon spoke into the roaring silence. “I choose not to remember,” he said. Alise felt as if his words broke a spell. Sound and life came suddenly back to the world. It included the sudden thud of feet on the deck behind her. A woman’s voice said, without preamble, “I fear you’re upsetting my ship. I’ll have to ask you to leave the foredeck.” “She’s not upsetting me, Althea,” Paragon interjected as Alise turned to see the captain’s wife advancing on her. Alise had met her when they embarked and had spoken with her several times, but still did not feel at ease with her. She was a small woman who wore her hair in a long black pigtail down her back. She dressed in sailor’s garb; it was well tailored and of quality fabric, but for all that, she was a woman in trousers and a jacket. Less feminine garb Alise could not imagine, and yet the very inappropriateness of it seemed to emphasize her female form. Her eyes were very dark, and right now they sparked with either anger or fear. Alise retreated a step and put her hand on Sedric’s arm. For his part, he turned his body so that he stood almost between them and said, “I’m sure the lady meant no harm. The ship asked us to come up and speak with him.” “That I did,” Paragon confirmed. He twisted to look over his shoulder at all of them. “No harm done, Althea, I assure you. We were speaking of dragons, and quite naturally, she asked me what I recalled of being one. I told her that I chose to recall nothing at all.” “Oh, Ship,” the woman said, and Alise felt as if she had disappeared. Althea Trell did not even glance at her as she moved forward to take Alise’s place at the bow. She leaned on the railing and stared far ahead up the river as if sharing the ship’s thoughts. “Par’gon!” A child’s voice piped up suddenly behind them. Alise turned to watch a small boy of three or four clambering onto the raised foredeck. He was bare armed and bare legged and baked dark by the sun. He scampered forward, dropped to his hands and knees, and thrust his head out under the ship’s railing. Alise gasped, expecting him to pitch overboard at any moment. Instead he demanded the ship’s attention with a strident, “Par’gon? You awright?” His babyish voice was full of concern. The ship swung his head around to stare at the child. His mouth puckered oddly and then suddenly he smiled, an expression that transformed his face. “I’m fine.” “Catch me!” the boy commanded, and before his mother could even turn to him, he launched himself into the figurehead’s waiting hands. “Fly me!” the imp commanded the ship. “Fly me like a dragon!” And without a word, the ship obeyed him. He cupped the child in his two immense hands and lifted him high and forward. The boy leaned fearlessly against the ship’s laced fingers and spread his small arms wide as if they were wings. The figurehead gently wove his hands through the air, swaying the youngster from left to right. A squeal of glee drifted back to them. Abruptly the charge of tension in the air vanished. Alise wondered if Paragon even recalled they were there. “Let’s leave them shall we?” Althea suggested quietly. “Is it safe for the child?” Sedric objected in horror. “It’s the safest place the boy can possibly be,” Althea replied with certainty. “And for the ship, it’s the best place, too.

In the garden of dreams, I planted a seed, A blossom of hope, where my heart took the lead. But your eyes, like stars, light years away, Twinkle in silence, in the night they sway. I'm a moth drawn to your flame, a dance in the dark, Yet you're the lighthouse, while I'm just a spark. My heart's a canvas, painted with sighs, Each stroke a whisper, where my longing lies. Like a river that flows, yet never meets the sea, I wander in shadows, forever longing to be. A symphony played on a one-stringed guitar, In the silence between us, I'm lost in your star.

ancient, something profound passed between us. It was a primal force that transcended word and thought, as powerful as a crack of lightning, a child’s first breath, the endless depth of the sea. It was not of this world but entirely woven within it. It warmed my blood with a calming peace I’d never known, yet filled me with the terrible dread of a fate I could not avoid.

I knew there were sparks between us when we first met, but I had no idea that they’d materialize into such an epically earth-moving fuckfest.

He cuts me off, capturing my lips with his, the electric charge between us sparking hotter and brighter.

No! Don’t touch me. I can’t control it.” “Let me help him,” Lady Amber said quietly. Two hesitant steps brought her to where I lay on the floor. I pulled my arms in tight, hiding my bare hand under my vest. “No. You of all people must not touch me!” She had crouched gracefully beside me, but as he hunkered back in his heels, he was my Fool and not Amber at all. There was immense sorrow in his voice as he said, “Did you think I would take from you the healing that you did not wish to give me, Fitz?” The room was spinning and I was too exhausted to hold anything back from him. “If you touch me, I fear the Skill will rip through me like a sword through flesh. If it can, it will give you back your sight. Regardless of the cost to me. And I believe the cost of restoring your sight will be that I lose mine.” The change in his face was startling. Pale as he was, he went whiter until he might have been carved from ice. Emotion tautened the skin of his face, revealing the bones that frames his visage. Scars that had faded stood out like cracks in fine pottery. I tried to focus my gaze on him, but he seemed to move with the room. I felt so nauseous and so weak, and I hated the secret I had to share with him. But there was no hiding it any longer. “Fool, we are too close. For every hurt I removed from your flesh, my body assumed the wound. Not as virulently as the injuries you carried, but when I healed my knife-stabs in your belly I felt them in mine the next day. When I closed the sores in your back, they opened in mine.” “I saw those wounds!” Perseverance gasped. “I thought you’d been attacked. Stabbed in the back.” I did not pause for his words. “When I healed the bones around your eye sockets, mine swelled and blackened the next day. If you touch me Fool—” “I won’t!” he exclaimed. He shot to his feet and staggered blindly away from me. “Get out of here. All three of you! Leave now. Fitz and I must speak privately. No, Spark, I will be fine. I can tend myself. Please go. Now.” They retreated, but not swiftly. They went in a bunch, with many backward glances. Spark had taken Per’s hand, and when they looked back it was with the faces of woeful children. Lant went last, and his expression was set in a Farseer stare so like his father’s that no one could have mistaken his bloodlines. “My chamber,” he said to them as he shut the door behind them, and I knew he would try to keep them safe. I hoped there was no real danger. But I also feared that General Rapskal was not finished with us. “Explain,” the Fool said flatly. I gathered myself up from the floor. It was far harder than it should have been. I rolled to my belly, drew my knees up under me until I was on all fours, and then staggered upright. I caught myself on the table’s edge and moved around it until I could reach a chair. My inadvertent healing of first Lant and then Per had extracted the last of my strength. Seated, I dragged in a breath. It was so difficult to keep my head upright. “I can’t explain what I don’t understand. It’s never happened with any other Skill-healing I’ve witnessed. Only between you and me. Whatever injury I take from you appears on me.

I think he does fancy me though, if that doesn’t sound big headed. There seemed to be a real spark between us tonight, like great chemistry, you know?

In a Burst of Oneness When wax and wick work best, light and heat are all that's left. Like a candle, our wick of spirit is encased in our humanity, and when our spirit is touched, we light up until all we know melts and changes shape for the burn of our experience. Repeatedly, our sweat and struggle burns our sense of self and world away, so that our Divine spark can be released, again and again. These moments of Spirit-Lighting-Up not only rearrange our lives, but they light and warm those who stay near. In such moments, we become one with what we see, and this sudden Oneness is what the faithful of all paths have called Love. And in the illumination of Oneness called Love, all that's left is a willingness toward birth, an urge to be touched by something timeless and fresh. All that's left is the want of deep parts in strangers. To relish the waking over being awake, the burning over being burned, the loving over being loved. When we can be—no matter how briefly—at one with what we have in common with all life, we are rewarded beyond attachment and ownership. This is the difference between becoming a singer and becoming the song. This is the best of ambition: that the dancer melts into the dance, and the lover melts into the act of love, and the builder melts into the thing being built, until in a burst of Oneness, dancer and lover and builder are one. Perhaps momentarily, when swimming with the stream, we are the stream; when moving with the music, we are the music; when rocking the wounded, we are the suffering. Perhaps momentarily, when thinking without masks, we are pure thought; when believing without doubt, we are God. Perhaps love is an instrument we play for all we're worth in an orchestra yet to be convened. Perhaps this is why, in the fullest moments of loving or knowing or being, we go nameless and timeless and breathless—everything about us used up, like a candle, burned over and over, just to light entire rooms with our flicker.

Content sparks our connections with others, our own selves, and the world. What we decide to share is a powerful expression of where we stand and where we want to go. An essential part of the human spirit, this constant information sharing is what ultimately builds the bridges between us. Every image, text, sound, or video that you have released into the world carries a part of you that others can relate to. If actions reveal our priorities, the content we share explains them.

My beloved grandson, I thank the gods for the joy of seeing your face again before I die. I wish with all my heart that you’d come back to us sooner.” Argus smiled, but made no move to approach his grandfather. “You’ll have to forgive me for staying away so long, Lord Aetes. As dearly as I love you, the idea of being put to death on my return to Aea kept me away. It’s a trivial thing, the fear of losing one’s life, but it means a lot to me.” Lord Aetes scowled. “Your father, Phrixus, was wrong to exile you, but every man has the right to rule his own family. I thought Phrixus was unjust, but I couldn’t intercede. I had a good reason.” He didn’t elaborate. “A very good one, no doubt,” Argus drawled. “Is it going to be good enough to justify executing me now that I’m back?” The king shook his head. “Your father and stepmother are both dead. Any quarrel you had with them is over. Your innocence and honor are not to be questioned by any man who owes me allegiance. All of your rights as a royal prince of Colchis are hereby restored.” “All of my rights?” Argus echoed. “You mean my stepbrother, Karos, is dead, too?” Lord Aetes didn’t answer. Argus stroked his beard. “I see. Well, won’t he be thrilled to learn that he’s going to have to share his inheritance.” “There will be peace between my grandsons,” Lord Aetes stated, gritting his teeth. “I will not have it otherwise. Did you come here to vex me, or to rejoin your family?” Argus’s laughter danced with the smoke and sparks rising from the fire pit. He strode around the hearth and embraced the king. “My apologies, Grandfather, but can you blame me for snapping? Look at the two of us. My years of exile have aged me so that we could pass for brothers!” Lord Aetes smiled and returned Argus’s hug. “That’s over now. We’ll soon have you looking your proper age.

Laughter, then, shows us the boundaries that language is too shy to make explicit. In this way, humor can be extremely useful for exploring the boundaries of the social world. The sparks of laughter illuminate what is otherwise murky and hard to pin down with precision: the threshold between safety and danger, between what’s appropriate and what’s transgressive, between who does and doesn’t deserve our empathy. In fact, what laughter illustrates is precisely the fact that our norms and other social boundaries aren’t etched in stone with black-and-white precision, but ebb and shift through shades of gray, depending on context. For this task, language just doesn’t cut it. It’s too precise, too quotable, too much “on the record”—all of which can be stifling and oppressive, especially when stated norms are too strict. In order to communicate in this kind of environment, we (clever primates) turn to a medium that gives us “wiggle room” to squirm out of an accusation, to defy any sticklers who would try to hold us accountable.

I’m sorry, but there just isn’t any… spark between us.” The line grew quiet. Then, “If you’re looking for sparks, I suggest you snuggle up with an electric fence.

How could I have fallen in love with him?” “Did you though? Wasn’t it just the security he offered that you fell in love with? If you were really in love with him, would there have been this spark between us?

Laurel?” His face inches closer. I suck in a breath. This is it—he’s going to kiss me. “Yes?” “Est-ce que je peux t’embrasser?” “I don’t know what that means,” I say in a breathy whisper. “What are you hopin’ it means?” Our mouths are a sigh apart, the air between us tickling my lips. His powerful chest brushes my breasts and this time, he doesn’t move away. “Say it again.” “Est-ce que je peux t’embrasser?” His mouth is hot, near my ear, warm breath sending a spark up my middle, dampening my underwear. “Dis oui, s’il te plait.” Est-ce que je peux t’embrasser; dear Lord, I hope it means he wants to kiss me. I hope it means—

You, with the help of God, make your own destiny. The desire to know your Creator, That which has created you, instills a deeper longing within you to ask for and receive more and more Divine Love, for what greater thing is there? Over time, you will cease to be just a created being, but become a new, Celestial Soul born of the Divine, not born of the human. Many (including myself until I had actually received Divine Love and felt the vast difference between it and natural love, realizing how I had not had it until this time, and indeed until I had received Divine Love many, many times) believe that everyone possesses ‘a Divine spark,,’ that there is some divinity within us which only needs development to make us Divine. This is wrong, and reminds us that a huge part of Christ’s Message was ignored, avoided and minimized. His deepest and simplest Message, given to him by God, is that we do not have within us the Divine or the divine spark, and never can or will have, until we receive and develop Divine Love through the simplest ways of deep desire, educated choice, constant humility, deep prayer and vulnerable, transparent and total, honest release of the soul’s wounds.

I don't need everything to be right." The air crackled with energy, sparks flying between us. "I need you to be real.

I mean – my mum and dad often talk about how great it would be to put us to sleep. In long car journeys mostly. They say they’d like a glass screen to slide up between the front seats and the back seat, and some kind of gas to pump in, so as soon as we went “Are we nearly—” they could freeze us. Five hours later when the car got to Cornwall they’d just hit the defrost button and we’d go “—there yet?”. – Ben

There’s not just a spark between us. There’s a full-on raging inferno. Don’t put it out.

To my dear daughters, granddaughters, and all future brides, I thought it would be a wonderful tradition for each bride to write a little note and leave a legacy for those who come after her. How I wish my own mother had lived to see my wedding day and been present to share her wisdom! I make no pretense at being wise, but God is. The bible says we can ask for wisdom, and God will honor our request. As you consider marriage, first seek God's will and ask Him to direct your heart. Do not hasten to take your vows. Pause and reflect before you take such a momentous step, and be sure your mate honors God. A marriage is not just between a man and a woman--it is a holy union which must include the Lord to flourish. Ethan was God's gift to me. His patience, strength, and companionship were like a balm to my grief. We learned to work together and rely on one another until respect and affection sparked. Love came softly and grew in our hearts. How I thank God for bringing us together and blessing our union! Though hardships test us and extraordinary things thrill us, life is made up of mundane days. Love each other in the little, commonplace matters of life to strengthen your marriage, or it will wither from neglect. Appreciate what you have, and forgive as freely as you laugh. My darlings, my prayer is for you to make wise decisions of the heart--first in devoting your spirit to the Lord, then in giving your hand to a man. May each of you be blessed with a godly mate and know the joy of growing close together and growing old with him.

The fire between us sparked so brightly because we both knew how it was without the other. We knew exactly how much we both had to lose.

The major difference between declaring something in faith and going down the positive confession route is that “positive confession often serves as the pretty wrapping paper on a package called denial.”52 God does not invite us to deny the challenges or impossibilities that we face; if He did, then when breakthrough was released, He would not receive the glory due His name. This is the tragedy of imbalanced positive confession theology.

There are no buts," she said. "Not about this. Not with me. I love you, Wilson, and I know that you love me. And if we're going to make it work between us, we're both going to have to give a little. I'm not asking you to believe. I'm asking you to it's acome with me to church. Marriage is about compromise; it's about doing something for the other person, even if you don't want to. Like I did with the wedding.

I loved my family, but collectively, they were a piece of work.

The one principle Heraclitus did embrace was that of the Logos, which can be variously translated as the Word or the Spirit or the Reason or even the Way—in fact, the parallels between Heraclitus’s Logos and the Chinese Tao are striking. By following the Logos, Heraclitus affirmed, which he saw as a kind of spark or breath (psyche in Greek) that resides in each of us as individuals and also permeates the world, we can achieve peace.

The one principle Heraclitus did embrace was that of the Logos, which can be variously translated as the Word or the Spirit or the Reason or even the Way—in fact, the parallels between Heraclitus’s Logos and the Chinese Tao are striking. By following the Logos, Heraclitus affirmed, which he saw as a kind of spark or breath (psyche in Greek) that resides in each of us as individuals and also permeates the world, we can achieve peace. For Heraclitus, the discovery that nothing is permanent was meant to be a source not of nihilistic despair but of understanding, as we come to realize that the physical reality around us—buildings, trees, mountains, other people, the entire works—is not actually “real” at all, but merely the playing out of opposites, “an attunement of opposite tensions, like a bow or lyre.

like I was chasing the spark that lit between us.

Rhysand chuckled. 'If you're that desperate for release, you should have asked me.' 'Pig,' I snapped, covering my breasts with the folds of my gown. With a few easy steps, he crossed the distance between us and pinned my arms to the wall. My bones groaned. I could have sworn shadow-talons dug into the stones beside my head. 'Do you actually intend to put yourself at my mercy, or are you truly that stupid?' His voice was composed of sensuous, bone-breaking ire. 'I'm not your slave.' 'You're a fool, Feyre. Do you have any idea what could have happened had Amarantha found you two in here? Tamlin might refuse to be her lover, but she keeps him at her side out of the hope that she'll break him- dominate him as she loves to do with our kind.' I kept silent. 'You're both fools,' he murmured, his breathing uneven. 'How did you not think that someone would notice you were gone? You should thank the Cauldron Lucien's delightful brothers weren't watching you.' 'What do you care?' I barked, and his grip tightened enough on my wrists that I knew my bones would snap with a little more pressure. 'What do I care?' he breathed, wrath twisting his features. Wings- those membranous, glorious wings- flared from his back, crafted from the shadows behind him. 'What do I care?' But before he could go on, his head snapped to the door, then back to my face. The wings vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and then his lips were crushing into mine. His tongue pried my mouth open, forcing himself into me, into the space where I could still taste Tamlin. I pushed and thrashed, but he held firm, his tongue sweeping over the roof of my mouth, against my teeth, claiming my mouth, claiming me- The door was flung wide, and Amarantha's curved figure filled the space. Tamlin- Tamlin was beside her, his eyes slightly wide, shoulders tight as Rhys's lips crushed mine. Amarantha laughed, and a mask of stone slammed down on Tamlin's face, void of feeling, void of anything vaguely like the Tamlin I'd been tangled up with moments before. Rhys casually released me with a flick of his tongue over my bottom lip as a crowd of High Fae appeared behind Amarantha and chimed in with her laughter. Rhysand gave them a lazy, self-indulgent grin and bowed. But something sparked in the queen's eyes as she looked at Rhysand. Amarantha's whore, they'd called him.

I’m completely fucked if you don’t feel this attraction between us.

Our friendship wasn’t limited to habits, to circumstances, to neighborhoods. We were friends because we were connected together, because something in our souls called to each other, understood each other. That connection, that spark between us, would remain even if our lives had changed completely.

The energy between us crackles and explodes as we both drink from each other. Sparks of fire and the taste of bitter wine invade my tongue. Poison has never tasted so good.

The push-pull of jouissance around signs of self-destruction represented a significant advance over Freud’s thinking about why traumatized people behave the way they do. Whereas Freud understood the traumatized person’s “compulsion to repeat” as a way of metabolizing or exorcising the pain of traumatic events and thoughts, Lacan saw that repetitive symptoms are really an adaptation to a new regime of enjoyment, how a person reorganizes his or her life in such a way as to continue to derive enjoyment from something that, on a conscious level, may be despised and even (in its most extreme and pathological forms) possibly does harm. Lacan was no more interested in literal precognition or prophecy than Freud was, but his revision of the Freudian theory of symptoms and their relation to trauma is highly suggestive for an understanding of precognitive phenomena, and the ways trauma may sometimes become “displaced in time.” For instance, in many cases where disasters and deaths are precognized, even including deaths of loved ones or near-fatal perils in one’s own future, there is an implicit reward, if only in the very primitive—and hard-to-acknowledge—sense of “but I survived.” This can be a very repellant kind of reward, something appealing to a very base, “lizard-brain,” survival-oriented part of us that may be at odds with our conscious, moral, social desires and sense of self. The paradoxical connection between survival and death, which sparked Freud’s thinking but which he could never resolve successfully, in some sense boils down to a matter of semiotics: the fact that the one value (survival) takes on its meaning or value as a signal only contrastively, when paired with its opposite (death/destruction). According to structural linguistics, which was hugely influential on Lacan, all signifiers ultimately derive their meaning from their opposition to other signifiers. In life’s semiotic (or “sign language”), death or disaster befalling others is the foremost signifier of our own being-there, our da-sein. If you find yourself “traumatized” by witnessing something terrible, you have by definition survived. Dreams seem to give people dramatic and often distorted previews of those situations lurking in the foggy waters ahead.

there may have been no practical reason for Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding, or for God to put “every beautiful tree” in the garden for Adam and Eve to enjoy, or for Him to adopt us into His family and lavish His love upon us. Maybe these were all simply expressions of His nonsensical love. And maybe that’s what worship is. It’s what happens when God’s delight in us inspires our delight in Him, sparking an endless loop of joy between Creator and creature, between Lover and beloved.

The fire covered the field, the flames worked fast. I glanced over at Preston who was watching the destruction with a dark grin. The fire reflected in his eyes; shadows moved across his face illuminating the deep creases as he gazed ahead with great conviction. He looked evil. Was he evil? Lord knows he’s done evil. Or was he a man who thought he was doing the right thing, just reacting to situations and conditions that were thrust upon him? Each man is the protagonist of his own life. Always right in their own mind, altruistic and correct no matter what society deems acceptable. Nobody thinks they're evil. Nobody thinks they’re a bad person. All deeds, no matter how harmful or offensive to others can be rationalized in the perpetrators mind; perhaps that is the definition of evil? I looked away, who am I to judge? I thought. I don’t have the theological qualifications or the clean track record to deem anyone evil, he’s just a man. I focused back on the inferno. Watching the fire spark and dance forming grinning malevolent shapes, I thought of the ancient Celtics when they’d set their world on fire with their Samhain bonfires; their unholy pagan ritual for summer’s end. That sacred night when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. The night of the great sacrifice. Blue-red flames licked the sky crackling and hissing their macabre cleansing cacophony that drew our unblinking stares and didn’t let go, it had us, it made us watch. Corynne clutched me close, her breathing was soft and warm; the air was beginning to cool. October was coming.

I clutch her hand, my insides tightening and twisting with a grief too painful to bear. And suddenly, I feel a frighteningly familiar searing sensation in my hands. I pull away from Lucia, and a scream rises in my throat at the sight of the lines in my palms--sparking and blazing a fiery orange. Panicking, I close my hands into fists, but the sparks leap from my hands up into the air, forming a single large flame suspended between our two bodies. The flame casts an eerie glow over Lucia, from the wild look in her eyes to the spade-shaped birthmark on her wrist. "What's happening?" Lucia cries, following my gaze. "How--how are you doing that?" I back away from her, trembling. Without warning, my hands return to normal. The space between us is once again dark and empty.

Don’t know if you have any hobbies.” She nodded. “I do. I may have to take a break from it for a bit while I’m out here, but normally when I have a light day on campus, I go to a class . . .” I waited. “It’s . . . pole dancing.” I stopped breathing, but at least I didn’t choke. Nodding, I took a sip of my wine to block my face, which I was pretty sure had turned the shade of a beet. “So, like Flashdance? Welder by day, dancer by night?” I barked out, feeling a stirring in my pants that was wholly inappropriate for my roomie, who’d been talking about diode lasers a minute earlier. She’s a goddamn pole dancer. She chuckled and crossed her arms over her chest as though trying to keep me from picturing her dancing. “Excellent movie reference. But no, that’s not even close to what I do.” It hardly mattered. My brain was stuck. Like a white-hot strobe had blinded me to everything except Sarah wearing lingerie and grinding on a pole under hot lights. For me. Stop picturing it. Fuck! “Cool,” I finally managed to say with a straight face. Like it meant nothing. She nodded. Like it meant nothing. Then she spread some brie cheese on a cracker and took a bite. I choked out an excuse and went to the bathroom to get a grip. This will be okay. It will. It has to be. In the bathroom, I splashed some cold water on my face and took a hard look at myself in the mirror. What was happening? I hadn’t been this jacked up over a woman anytime in the past two years. My emotions had been buried in caverns so deep I felt confident they were gone for good. I was fine with that. It made no sense. Or . . . maybe it did. I’ve always been competitive as fuck. If I’m told I can’t have something, I want it all the more and do anything in my power to make it mine. That had to be what was happening here. It was all in my head. I knew she was off limits, so the competitive motherfucker in me started bucking against that. I just needed to get my head together and think of her like any other human who happened to be using my second bedroom. When I got back to the table, Sarah looked up at me with a thin slice of Parma ham twirled around her fork and put the bit into her mouth. I had no defensible reason to focus on her lips or the soft contour of her jaw while she chewed. She swallowed and smiled at me. “I figured I should get a head start on eating while you were gone. In case you had more questions.” “Good plan. Maybe we should focus on the food for a few minutes, or we could be here all night.” I bit into a slider and closed my eyes at how delicious the slow-roasted meat tasted on the brioche bun. Who needed to cook when someone else could make food that tasted like this? It was how I’d become addicted to takeout and why I rarely ate at home anymore. That, and I spent a lot of time at work. Sarah finished the last of the cheesy bread and wiped her lips gingerly on a napkin before looking right at me with those gorgeous eyes. “This is weird, right? It’s not just me?” I tilted my head, trying to read her expression and decipher her meaning. “Could you be specific? She waved her hands between us. “This. Us. We’re in our thirties and we’re roommates. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a roommate for about ten years. Does it freak you out a little bit?” Yes, but not for the reasons she meant.

What to do with the lives around us, within us? How to classify them? They are and are not examined lives, monochrome canvases with blots, smudges, freckles scattered over a space made up of shackled time. Examined lives (canvases), crisscrossed with shallow empty spaces, dappled with little bumps—hillocks—and narrow furrows, cuttings, grooves, many alike, in which slow, stagnant waters swirl. Lives with rounded edges, easily catalogued, easily connected, easily nailed onto the shelves of memory. And forgotten there. Then, those others: lives crisscrossed, entangled, knotted wit veins, scars, clefts which continue to breathe under the gravestones over the little mounds of our being, scabbed-over wounds that still bleed within. Impenetrable lives. They flicker in the darkness, sending out little sparks of light, fluorescent, like the bones of corpses. Placed side by side, there is no current between them, because both these kinds of life collapse into themselves, silently and menacingly like rising waters. Kaleidoscopic lives. Like the drawings of schizoid patients.

[I]n Greece, the distinctive political situation that arose beginning around 800 BCE and persisted for at least the next half-millennium was the differentiator that enabled the world of the city-states to perform economically and culturally at a level much higher than the premodern normal, defined by conditions in the Late Bronze, Early Iron, and early modern periods of Greek history - and indeed, at a level that in some respects matched the exceptionally high-performing early modern societies of Holland and Britain. Those conclusions are important to us in modernity, not because Greece was the unique origin of the Western tradition or the spark that ignited a putative 'great divergence' between East and West but because classical Greece is the earliest documented case of 'democratic exceptionalism plus efflorescence' - a historically rare combination of economic, cultural, and political conditions pertaining among developed countries in the contemporary world. Insofar as we value democracy and prefer wealth to poverty, then we have good reason to care about explaining the rise of the society in which the wealth and democracy package is first documented. We have equally good reasons for wanting to explain why the major states within that society failed to maintain their full independence in the face of entrepreneurial authoritarians willing and able to appropriate institutions and technology. In the long run, the loss of city-state independence was coincident with a long economic decline. By the seventh century CE, core Greece had reverted to the relatively impoverished condition of the 'premodern normal.' The world of Greek antiquity was obviously very different from our own, and some of the factors that led to both the rise and fall of classical Greece are unlikely to be repeated. Yet for those who do recognize certain features of our modernity in the history of classical Greece, that history may serve as a cautionary tale.

If two people are romantically involved (or even if they aren’t, but at least one of them feels there’s a potential spark), then almost any conversation between them about any romance whatsoever, no matter who it involves, stands a good chance of being heard by one or both of them as putting a spotlight on their own situation. Such boomeranging-back is almost inevitable because romances, even very good ones, are filled with uncertainty and yearning. We are always on the lookout for clues or insights into our romantic lives, and analogies are among the greatest sources of clues and insights. Therefore, to notice an analogy between ourselves and another couple that is occupying center stage in our conversation is pretty much a piece of cake handed to us on a silver platter.

Collective potential doesn't live in titles or talent, it lives in the space between us, and trust is the spark that sets it on fire.

The longest day of summer the fruit trees all droop in the summer sun and the rose bush dances gently swaying to the rhyme of birds singing I cannot see them but I hear the beautiful melodies and the dove with its majestic elegance in silence porches upon the television arial conducting the small unseen birds scattered in between the green leaves I am the free spirit I am the prisoner of time I am the fountain of youth in an old men's body I am the experience of life I am the eyes that watch in wonder I am the witness of declining values I am the witness of those who suffer I am the thoughts that become the written words I share I am the spark of connection that connects us all I am the lover the sufferer I am the positive energy that inspires and encourages the souls who become tired and lost in life I am the naked soul that the morning dew baptizes and blesses with the strength to help others I love you

You!” she snarled, her glower intended for Narian. He walked unflinchingly toward her, keeping me close to his side. “You knew of this plot! Confess the part you have played and I will perhaps spare your life.” Narian put a hand on my shoulder, telling me to stay where I was, then took a few steps closer to the woman who had been like a mother to him. I stood frozen, waiting along with her to hear his answer. What was going on? What had Narian done? “I am not a part of this,” he declared. Nantilam quickly closed the remaining distance between them. She was infuriated, her green eyes flaring as vividly as the flames outside. “But you know more than you have told me.” Her voice was low, dangerous, rumbling with anger. “I know that the Hytanicans’s first rebellion was meant to distract us, and that those captured willingly sacrificed their lives. I know that right now, the men you wanted to execute are waging one last fight to reclaim their kingdom.” My head was spinning, both at the news and at my own idiocy. How could I have failed to see this? How could I not have known it would happen? I had chosen to be blind, even when Narian had all but begged me to come to Cokyri with him. I hadn’t wanted to see it. But the clues had been there. Now people were dying in Hytanica. Someone, probably London, had set the fires here in Cokyri to hinder the arrival of messengers from the province with word of the revolt and to forestall the High Priestess from sending reinforcements. We were trapped and helpless, able only to imagine the battle taking place on the other side of the river. “I knew something was amiss,” the High Priestess simmered. “I knew it the moment I saw Alera with you. You’re a traitor, Narian.” He shook his head, his expression hard. “I am no traitor. I did everything you asked of me. I conquered Hytanica for you and the Overlord, I administered the province as you wanted for months, and I did not plot against you.” Narian’s voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “I am not to blame for what is happening today--for giving the Hytanicans a fair chance at retaking what is rightfully theirs. My only sin is that I did not try to stop them.” Nantilam scrutinized him for what seemed an eternity. “I listened to you,” she vehemently said at last. “I loved you, and I trusted you, and I fought not to lose you after my brother’s death.” “You never trusted me,” Narian contradicted, interrupting whatever else she had intended to say. “And with good reason. You believe the only way to repay a betrayal if with a betrayal. You betrayed me in the worst way imaginable. You lied to me my entire life, trained me and used me as a weapon, never telling me the real reason I was of value to you.” His blue eyes flashed, their sapphire brilliance rivaling the ever-changing emerald sparks in hers. “But I will no longer be manipulated for your causes, and I will not become another warlord. You can consider yourself repaid.

Naperville Community Unit School District 203 in Illinois, profiled in John J. Ratey’s book Spark, is a particularly inspiring example of how physical movement enhances cognitive ability. School officials implemented a district-wide PE curriculum that focuses on fitness as opposed to sports, and then had students take some of their hardest subjects after exercising. As a result, Naperville students achieved stunning results on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a standardized test administered every four years to students worldwide. In 1999 it was given in thirty-eight countries31, and Naperville students scored first in the world in science, and sixth in math—behind only math superstars such as Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. This is remarkable, since Naperville students are a cross-sampling of ordinary American students. The stunning results from Naperville echo other studies suggesting a strong link between exercise and learning. Researchers from Harvard32 and other universities reported in 2009 that the more physical fitness tests children passed, the better they did on academic tests.

Kaleidoscope Yoga: The universal heart and the individual self. We, as humanity, make up together a mosaic of beautiful colors and shapes that can harmoniously play together in endless combinations. We are an ever-changing play of shape and form. A kaleidoscope consists of a tube (or container), mirrors, pieces of glass (or beads or precious stones), sunlight, and someone to turn it and observe and enjoy the forms. Metaphorically, perhaps the sun represents the divine light, or spark of life, within all of us. The mirrors represent our ability to serve as mirrors for one another and each other’s alignment, reflecting sides of ourselves that we may not have been aware of. The tube (or container) is the practice of community yoga. We, as human beings, are the glass, the beads, the precious stones. The facilitator is the person turning the Kaleidoscope, initiating the changing patterns. And the resulting beauty of the shapes? Well, that’s for everyone to enjoy... Coming into a practice and an energy field of community yoga over and over, is a practice of returning, again and again, to the present moment, to the person in front of you, to the people around you, to your body, to others’ bodies, to your energy, to others’ energy, to your breath, to others’ breath. [...] community yoga practice can help us, in a very real, practical, grounded, felt, somatic way, to identify and be in harmony with all that is around us, which includes all of our fellow human beings.
 We are all multiple selves. We are all infinite. We are all universal selves. We are all unique expressions of the universal heart and universal energy. We are all the universal self. We are all one another. And we are all also unique specific individuals. And to the extent that we practice this, somatically, we become more and more comfortable and fluid with this larger, more cosmic, more inter-related reality. We see and feel and breathe ourselves, more and more, as the open movement of energy, as open somatic possibility. As energy and breath. This is one of the many benefits of a community yoga practice. Kaleidoscope shows us, in a very practical way, how to allow universal patterns of wisdom and interconnectedness to filter through us. [...] One of the most interesting paradoxes I have encountered during my involvement with the community yoga project (and it is one that I have felt again and again, too many times to count) is the paradox that many of the most infinite, universal forms have come to me in a place of absolute solitude, silence, deep aloneness or meditation. And, similarly, conversely and complimentarily, (best not to get stuck on the words) I have often found myself in the midst of a huge crowd or group of people of seamlessly flowing forms, and felt simultaneously, in addition to the group energy, the group shape, and the group awareness, myself as a very cleanly and clearly defined, very particular, individual self. These moments and discoveries and journeys of group awareness, in addition to the sense of cosmic expansion, have also clarified more strongly my sense of a very specific, rooted, personal self. The more deeply I dive into the universal heart, the more clearly I see my own place in it. And the more deeply I tune in and connect with my own true personal self, the more open and available I am to a larger, more universal self. We are both, universal heart and universal self. Individual heart and individual self. We are, or have the capacity for, or however you choose to put it, simultaneous layers of awareness. Learning to feel and navigate and mediate between these different kinds and layers of awareness is one of the great joys of Kaleidoscope Community Yoga, and of life in general. Come join us, and see what that feels like, in your body, again and again. From the Preface of Kaleidoscope Community Yoga: The Art of Connecting: The First 108 Poses

Stapp made the point that there is no stronger influence on human values than man’s belief about his relationship to the power that shapes the universe. When medieval science connected man directly to his Creator, man saw himself as a child of the divine imbued with a will free to choose between good and evil. When the scientific revolution converted human beings from the sparks of divine creation into not particularly special cogs in a giant impersonal machine, it eroded any rational basis for the notion of responsibility for one’s actions. We became a mechanical extension of what preceded us, over which we have no control; if everything we do emerges preordained by the conditions that prevail, then we can have no responsibility for our own actions. “Given this conception of man,” Stapp argued, “the collapse of moral philosophy is inevitable.” But just as Newtonian physics undermines moral philosophy, Stapp thought, so quantum physics might rescue it. For quantum physics describes a world in which human consciousness is intimately tied into the causal structure of nature, a world purged of determinism.

What about you?” he asked, ready to take the focus off himself and his parents. “What kind of mom did you have?” She hesitated. Her hair was unraveled and lay in a glorious display of long dark curls around her face. The muscles in his hands tensed with the need to thread his fingers through the thick locks. Instead he grabbed his ax and poked the fire, sending more sparks flying. “I don’t remember much about my mother,” she said. He stared at the flames, trying to keep a rein on his thoughts about Lily. “She died giving birth to Daisy.” Her voice dipped. “I’m sorry.” He stilled and glanced at her again. Her forehead crinkled above eyes that radiated pain. “My father couldn’t take care of us, and for a few years we were shuffled between relatives. Until he got into an accident at work and died within a few days.” An ache wound around his heart. “After that, no one wanted us anymore. I suppose without the money my father had provided them, they couldn’t afford to take care of two more children—not when they struggled enough without us. So they dropped us off at the New York Foundling Hospital.” She paused, and he didn’t say anything, although part of him wished he could curse the family that gave up two girls with such ease. “We lived at the hospital in New York City until there was no longer room for us. Then we moved to other orphanages.” She turned to look at the fire, embarrassment reflected in her face. “I made sure they never separated Daisy and me. I kept us together all those years, no matter where we were. And finally we had the option of moving here to Michigan. They said families needed boys and girls. We’d get to live in real homes.” The grip on his heart cinched tighter. “When we got here, I thought I was doing the best thing for Daisy by giving her a real family to live with. The Wretchams seemed nice. They lived on a big farm. Needed some extra help—” “So you and Daisy didn’t stay together?” “There weren’t any families needing two almost-grown girls. But I consoled myself that it was only temporary, that we’d only be apart until I could find a good job and a place for us to live.” “That must have been hard on both of you.” “Letting her go was like ripping out a piece of my heart.” He wanted to reach for her, pull her into his arms, and comfort her. But everything within him warned him against even a move as innocent as that. “When I learned she’d run away from the Wretchams, she ripped out the rest of my heart, and it hasn’t stopped bleeding since.

We are bits of meat in a watery broth. Sweet-tallow candles waiting to be lit. Pleasure makes us numb, stupid, inert. Pain sparks our wicks. The light and scent of pain—the greater the better—draws the attention of the mighty. The prodigious. The vast and numberless. And that frisson, between the pain, the effluent release of it, and the intention of the deliverers and emissaries, brings forth the miasma.

What are we supposed to be doing?” Lonen whispered, though High Priestess Febe had left the room. “Meditating,” she hissed back. “Yes, I heard that part. What in Arill does that mean?” “Like… praying to your goddess. Silently,” she emphasized. He was quiet for a few breaths, no more. “Now what?” She tried to suppress the laugh, but failed so it choked out in a most unladylike sound. Lonen flashed a grin at her and she shook her head. “Keep doing it. And be quiet—she could come back at any time.” “Why would I keep doing something I already did?” “You’re supposed to be contemplating!” She tried to sound stern, but his complaints so closely echoed hers through the years that she couldn’t manage it. “Contemplate what?” he groused. “I already made the decision about the step I’m about to take. There’s no sense revisiting it.” “Then pretend. It won’t be that much longer.” He stayed quiet for a bit more, though he shifted restlessly, looking around the room and studying the various representations of the moons, looking at her from time to time. That insatiable curiosity of his built, feeding into her sgath, slowly intensifying. She was so keenly aware of him, she knew he’d speak the moment before he did. “You don’t mind?” he asked. “You talking when we’re supposed to be meditating?” “Do you always do what the temple tells you to do?” “Hardly ever,” she admitted. “But appearances are critical. Especially now.” He sighed and was quiet for a while. But his question remained between them, tugging at her like Chuffta pulling her braids when he wanted attention. And it might be some time before Febe returned. She reached out with her sgath to keep tabs on the high priestess, who was indeed still in one of the inner sanctums, no doubt also meditating and preparing herself for the ritual. “We have a little time and I’ll give us warning,” she relented. “Do I mind what?” “Not having a special dress, a big celebration. I don’t have a beah for you.” “What is a beah ?” “A Destrye gifts his bride with a beah and she wears it as a symbol of their marriage. I thought I’d have time to find something to stand in place of it until I can give you a proper one. And that we’d have time to change clothes.” “You look fine—I told you before.” “I look like a Báran,” he grumped, then glared, annoyance sparking when she giggled. “It’s not funny.” “Báran clothes look good on you,” she soothed, much as she would Chuffta’s offended dignity. Perhaps males of all species were the same. “Hey!” She ignored Chuffta’s indignant response. Lonen did look appealing in the silk pants and short-sleeved shirt, even though her sgath mainly showed her his exuberant masculine presence. “Well, you deserve something better than that robe,” he replied. “And more than this hasty ceremony. Arill knows, Natly went on enough about the details of planning…” He trailed off, chagrin coloring his thoughts. “Yeah,” she drawled. “Maybe better to not bring up your fiancée during our actual wedding ceremony.” “Former fiancée,” he corrected. “Really not even that. And this isn’t the ceremony yet—this is waiting around for it to start. My knees are getting sore.” “And here I thought you were the big, bad warrior.” “I am. Big, bad warriors don’t kneel. We charge about, swinging our weapons.” She laughed, shaking her head at him. That good humor of his flickered bright, charming her, banishing his perpetual anger to the shadowed corners of his aura. In the back of her mind, Febe moved. “She’s coming back. Not much longer. Try to school your thoughts.

I wanted to tell him every secret in my heart. Tell him how I felt the spark between us the first time we met. Tell him I forgave him and that I was scared to lose him. But there wasn’t time. We never had enough time.

This spark between us is so strong. Sometimes, I feel it might steal the oxygen from the air around us." "Exactly." He smiles and leans in to kiss her on the mouth.

Without a word, he leaned in to kiss me. It was both a total surprise and exactly what I’d been waiting for. His lips brushed mine, and I kissed him back, hoping it wasn’t obvious I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of practice in that area any more than I did with magic – and then forgetting that worry as his free hand rose up to trace his fingers into my hair. His touch sent sparks shooting over my skin. His mouth moved against mine, hot but gentle. This, this was magic. Even better than the stuff we’d generated between us before. Jonathan eased back, only halfway to where he’d started. His hand slid down to my shoulder. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked abruptly, adorably shy. “Was that all right?” he said. “I mean…” He didn’t seem to know how to continue, so I helped him out. “Completely okay. Very, very good, in fact.” Maybe I shouldn’t have been quite that emphatic, but I was also grinning like a maniac, so it wasn’t like he could miss how much I’d enjoyed the kiss. Jonathan’s eyes brightened, his usual assurance returning. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “In that case, maybe we could do it again?

Mr Ambrayses nodded. “Two explanations are commonly offered for this,” he said: “In the first we are asked to imagine certain sites in the world–a crack in the concrete in Chicago or New Delhi, a twist in the air in an empty suburb of Prague, a clotted milk bottle on a Bradford tip–from which all flies issue in a constant stream, a smoke exhaled from some fundamental level of things. This is what people are asking–though they do not usually know it–when they say exasperatedly, “Where are all these flies coming from ?” Such locations are like the holes in the side of a new house where insulation has been pumped in: something left over from the constructional phase of the world. “This is an adequate, even an appealing model of the process. But it is not modern; and I prefer the alternative, in which it is assumed that as Viriconium grinds past us, dragging its enormous bulk against the bulk of the world, the energy generated is expressed in the form of these insects, which are like the sparks shooting from between two flywheels that have momentarily brushed each other.

Why Poetry Can Be Hard for Most People Dorothea Lasky, 1978 Because speaking to the dead is not something you want to do When you have other things to do in your day Like take out the trash or use the vacuum In the edge between the stove and cupboard Because the rat is everywhere Crawling around Or more so walking And it doesn’t even notice you It has its own intentions And is searching for that perfect bag of potato chips like you once were Because life is no more important than eating Or fucking Or talking someone into fucking Or talking someone into something Or sleeping calmly and soundly And all you can hope for are the people who put that calm in you Or let you go into it with dignity Because poetry reminds you That there is no dignity In living You just muddle through and for what Jack Jack you wrote to him You wrote to all of us I wasn’t even born You wrote to me A ball of red and green shifting sparks In my parents’ eye You wrote to me and I just listened I listened I listened I tell you And I came back No Poetry is hard for most people Because of sound

And are you over that fear now?” “Not yet.” We’re at the dormitory door. The walk has never gone by so quickly. I put my hands in my pockets so I don’t do anything stupid with them again. “I may never be.” “So they don’t go away?” “Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them. But becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that’s the point.” She nods. I don’t know what she came here for, but if I had to guess, it would be that she chose Dauntless for its freedom. Abnegation would have stifled the spark in her until it died out. Dauntless, for all its faults, has kindled the spark into a flame. “Anyway,” I say. “Your fears are rarely what they appear to be in the simulation.” “What do you mean?” “Well, are you really afraid of crows?” I grin. “When you see one, do you run away screaming?” “No, I guess not.” She moves closer to me. I felt safer when there was more space between us. Even closer, and I think about touching her, and my mouth goes dry. I almost never think about people that way, about girls that way. “So what am I really afraid of?” she says. “I don’t know,” I say. “Only you can know.” “I didn’t know Dauntless would be this difficult.” I’m glad to have something else to think about, other than how easy it would be to fit my hand to the arch of her back.

For a second, I’m too shocked to react. I don’t know why; this thing has been lurking between us for weeks, never dormant, always present. But she’s been wary, pushing me away, and I didn’t expect this. My surprise lasts almost no time at all. Just a second’s worth of her lips against mine, her hands, warm against the cool, bare skin of my shoulders. My last intelligent thought is that I’m not letting this go to waste, and then I’m kissing her back. Wrapping my arm around her, bringing her close so that her body lies flush against mine. My free hand tangles in her dark hair, wrapping it around my fingers, following it up to her scalp, the line of her ear. She tastes so good—sweet, like an apple. Her hands slide down my chest, leaving a trail of heat, coming to rest on my hips. Tina shifts her weight and then straddles me. My nerves light up at that, sparking with desire. Fuck, I want her. She’s wearing jeans. I’m wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter that there’s layers of thick denim between us; my body still recognizes the feel of hips pressing against my pelvis. The friction of fabric is rough against my cock, but it’s everything I could have asked for. Her hands rise again, sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders. She kisses me like she’s been thinking of this as long as I have, like this kiss has been building from the first day we saw each other. She kisses me like there’s no space between us. And there isn’t—not much. I’m not trying to escalate things. I’m not even really thinking about it. But when she smoothes her palm down my chest, my hand creeps up by her side, sliding up until I find the fabric of her bra. Under other circumstances, I might rip it off. But I don’t want to freak her out. I cup her breast in the palm of my hand. She gasps instantly. I was already hard; with that, I find myself turning to stone. Needing, wanting, stone. If I’m stone, she’s fire. Her hips grind into me as my thumb finds her nipple. My lips graze her neck. My tongue darts out and traces down her collarbone. I can’t even remember why I ever thought it was cold in here. It’s a fucking furnace. I pull her close. She’s so fucking responsive. It’s hot beyond belief to watch her go up in flames on top of me, to watch how the smallest touch, the slightest pressure in the right place, gets her going. I don’t have much of a thought process, but it goes something like yes, yes, more now. And she must be thinking the same thing—thank God—because she takes her shirt off. She’s wearing a simple white cotton bra, no padding, and her nipples poke through. I lean forward and catch one in my mouth. She likes it. She grinds against me. Her fingers clench on my shoulders, gripping tight, so fucking tight. I find her other breast—small enough that I can palm it with one hand, so that my fingers can explore every last inch. She’s letting out little moans that seem to go straight to my dick. “You,” I growl out, “have awesome tits.” She freezes on top of me. And then, seconds later, she pulls away. “Don’t.” She reaches for her shirt. “Don’t lie to me. I have nonexistent boobs.” I run my finger over her nipple. “Yeah? What’s this, then?” She shivers. “You have awesome tits,” I repeat. “I love touching them. Licking. Sucking. It makes me fucking wild to be able to drive you crazy like this. Tits are a fucking gift for sexual pleasure. So never tell me you have nonexistent boobs again. I think I just proved otherwise.” She draws in a deep breath. Her eyes meet mine. She looks almost shattered.

For a second, I’m too shocked to react. I don’t know why; this thing has been lurking between us for weeks, never dormant, always present. But she’s been wary, pushing me away, and I didn’t expect this. My surprise lasts almost no time at all. Just a second’s worth of her lips against mine, her hands, warm against the cool, bare skin of my shoulders. My last intelligent thought is that I’m not letting this go to waste, and then I’m kissing her back. Wrapping my arm around her, bringing her close so that her body lies flush against mine. My free hand tangles in her dark hair, wrapping it around my fingers, following it up to her scalp, the line of her ear. She tastes so good—sweet, like an apple. Her hands slide down my chest, leaving a trail of heat, coming to rest on my hips. Tina shifts her weight and then straddles me. My nerves light up at that, sparking with desire. Fuck, I want her. She’s wearing jeans. I’m wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter that there’s layers of thick denim between us; my body still recognizes the feel of hips pressing against my pelvis. The friction of fabric is rough against my cock, but it’s everything I could have asked for. Her hands rise again, sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders. She kisses me like she’s been thinking of this as long as I have, like this kiss has been building from the first day we saw each other. She kisses me like there’s no space between us. And there isn’t—not much. I’m not trying to escalate things. I’m not even really thinking about it. But when she smoothes her palm down my chest, my hand creeps up by her side, sliding up until I find the fabric of her bra. Under other circumstances, I might rip it off. But I don’t want to freak her out. I cup her breast in the palm of my hand. She gasps instantly. I was already hard; with that, I find myself turning to stone. Needing, wanting, stone. If I’m stone, she’s fire. Her hips grind into me as my thumb finds her nipple. My lips graze her neck. My tongue darts out and traces down her collarbone. I can’t even remember why I ever thought it was cold in here. It’s a fucking furnace. I pull her close. She’s so fucking responsive. It’s hot beyond belief to watch her go up in flames on top of me, to watch how the smallest touch, the slightest pressure in the right place, gets her going. I don’t have much of a thought process, but it goes something like yes, yes, more now. And she must be thinking the same thing—thank God—because she takes her shirt off. She’s wearing a simple white cotton bra, no padding, and her nipples poke through. I lean forward and catch one in my mouth. She likes it. She grinds against me. Her fingers clench on my shoulders, gripping tight, so fucking tight. I find her other breast—small enough that I can palm it with one hand, so that my fingers can explore every last inch. She’s letting out little moans that seem to go straight to my dick. “You,” I growl out, “have awesome tits.” She freezes on top of me. And then, seconds later, she pulls away. “Don’t.” She reaches for her shirt. “Don’t lie to me. I have nonexistent boobs.” I run my finger over her nipple. “Yeah? What’s this, then?” She shivers. “You have awesome tits,” I repeat. “I love touching them. Licking. Sucking. It makes me fucking wild to be able to drive you crazy like this. Tits are a fucking gift for sexual pleasure. So never tell me you have nonexistent boobs again. I think I just proved otherwise.” She draws in a deep breath. Her eyes meet mine. She looks almost shattered.

The beauty of the soul is not the same as that of the body. One is immortal, the other is not. One can stand the test of time while the other fades. Love imparts wisdom and learning. In this way, it creates order, harmony and promotes an overall good. Love is the spark that can make things immortal.” “Like what?” I ask in disbelief. “Inventions, virtues, ideas, heroic and rebellious actions, art, social and distributive justice, laws, literature, music, science, and any other transformations towards the creation of a better world.

It’s hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride." I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: “But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primigenial chaos? Isn’t affirming God’s absolute omnipotence and his absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?” William looked at me without betraying any feeling in his features, and he said, “How could a learned man go on communicating his learning if he answered yes to your question?” I did not understand the meaning of his words. “Do you mean,” I asked, “that there would be no possible and communicable learning any more if the very criterion of truth were lacking, or do you mean you could no longer communicate what you know because others would not allow you to?” At that moment a section of the dormitory roof collapsed with a huge din, blowing a cloud of sparks into the sky. Some of the sheep and the goats wandering through the grounds went past us, bleating horribly. A group of servants also went by us, shouting, nearly knocking us down. “There is too much confusion here,” William said. “Non in commotione, non in commotione Dominus.

Where is all my wisdom, then? I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe." “But in imagining an erroneous order you still found something…” “What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it if useful, it is meaningless. muoz gelîchesame die leiter abewerfen, sô er an ir ufgestigen...Is that how you say it?” “That is how it is said in my language. Who told you that?” “A mystic from your land. He wrote it somewhere, I forget where. And it is not necessary for somebody one day to find that manuscript again. The only truths that are useful are instruments to be thrown away.” “You have no reason to reproach yourself: you did your best.” “A human best, which is very little. It’s hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride." I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: “But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primigenial chaos? Isn’t affirming God’s absolute omnipotence and his absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?” William looked at me without betraying any feeling in his features, and he said, “How could a learned man go on communicating his learning if he answered yes to your question?” I did not understand the meaning of his words. “Do you mean,” I asked, “that there would be no possible and communicable learning any more if the very criterion of truth were lacking, or do you mean you could no longer communicate what you know because others would not allow you to?” At that moment a section of the dormitory roof collapsed with a huge din, blowing a cloud of sparks into the sky. Some of the sheep and the goats wandering through the grounds went past us, bleating horribly. A group of servants also went by us, shouting, nearly knocking us down. “There is too much confusion here,” William said. “Non in commotione, non in commotione Dominus.

Bitterness is anger with nowhere to go. Bitterness and resignation are close and tempting cousins. Anger with a target is Rage, and Rage is sister to Hope alone. We rage because we do believe things can be better, by fire if necessary ...While bitterness is an isolator, a repellent to community, Rage is a beacon calling out to others. It is as much a communal invitation as any bonfire. Come join me, Rage says, at this spark that is lit by the distance between what the world is, and what we could make it ... The night is long and dark, Rage says, but I will keep us warm.

Wanna know a secret? I happen to like dark,” he says, his eyes connecting with mine. Jesus. I swallow hard, trying to ignore the sudden spark of electricity between us. “Dark, huh? Be careful what you wish for, Jack.” He holds my gaze, his expression turning serious. “I’m not afraid of the dark. Or of you.

At that point on the continuum of cultural history, several degrees from active or meaningful talk about what beauty and power and confidence actually meant, I thought I should know, intuitively, how to be that woman, how to combine sexuality and ambition, how to navigate all those fuzzy lines between femininity and authority, relationships and autonomy. And not knowing these things intuitively, I thought I was missing something, or had missed something, or (more hopefully) might acquire something if only I looked in the right place...if only, if only. This is what's insidious about consumerism: It's not that it encourages us to shop but that it encourages us to forget, not that it sparks need but that it dilutes it, shrink-wraps it and flings it into the handiest and most tangible containers.

the only reason I’m not dead in a trench somewhere is because you pitied me. The only reason you’re even listening to me now is because, by some insane miracle, I happened to be another kind of different.“ Lazily, my sparks rise in my hands. I can’t imagine going back to life before my body hummed with power, but I can certainly remember it.” “ “ you can stop this, Cal. You will be King, and you can stop this war, you can save thousands, millions, from generations of glorified, slavery, if you just say enough.” Something breaks and Cal, quenching the fire, he tries so hard to hide. He crosses to the window, hands clasped behind his back. With the rising Sun on his face and shadow on his back, he seems torn between two worlds. In my heart, I know he is. The little part of me that still cares about him wants to close the distance between us, but I am not that foolish, I am not a little lovesick girl.” -page 299

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So, what I am going to say now is because of this: because I do not want there to be any misunderstandings between us.” He takes a deep breath, building up to something. “I do not want to be your friend, Raphael. I do not want to watch sunrises and think of you. I do not want to close my eyes to go to sleep and see the image of your mouth when you smile. I do not want to spend a five-hour flight daydreaming about your eyes or the sound of your voice or the way you say my name. I do not want it. And yet… all of these things I have done just today.” “Jaeh…” I start but he’s not finished. “If you come to see me in New York, then I will assume—based on what you have said—that you wish for there to be something between us which is not friendship. I will also assume, even though you did not confirm it when I asked you, that you wish to fuck me.” “Ask me again,” I reply before he can say anything else. “Ask me again if I want to fuck you, Jaehyun.” I can hear his breathing change, soft and almost imperceptible, to something quicker, a little heavier. “Do you want to fuck me?” “Yes.” I breathe the word out, the lightness of its release making my head spin. I close my eyes to re-center myself because I feel fit to splinter apart from the confession. “I want that. I want…” I open my eyes and stare out at the flickering lights of downtown LA, sparks of amber that bleed together the longer I look at them. “I want you. I don’t know what this is but I haven’t been able to think in a straight line since I saw you and it’s driving me insane. I want…to touch you, breathe you in, kiss you, taste you, and I don’t know what any of it means. It’s…it’s like I’m fucking obsessed. I feel obsessed. Have you ever been obsessed with anything? Ever wanted something so much it makes every breath you have to take without it, pointless?

It’s always like this between us—the slightest spark sets off a wildfire that consumes every thought that isn’t related to how many ways I can make her moan. We’ll have a lifetime of these moments ahead of us, when I can strip her down to her skin and worship every curve and hollow of her body

It’s always like this between us—the slightest spark sets off a wildfire that consumes every thought that isn’t related to how many ways I can make her moan.

I truly feared I had to choose between you,” the Fool said quietly. When I said nothing, he added, “Her dream of the buck, the bee, and the scale.” “And yet I am here, and alive, and our enemies are walled away from us by smoldering rubble. Perhaps I am still the Catalyst, and can change even her predictions of what must be. I am not dead yet and I don’t intend to die. I am taking Bee home, to Buckkeep. She will be raised as a princess, and you will be at het side to teach and advise her. Her sister will adore her and she will have a little niece to play with.” Two of the freed Whites rose and went over to the rack of torture tools. They made choices and then joined Lant, Spark, and Per, chipping away at the mortar. The irony twisted in my gut. “And we will live happily ever after?” the Fool asked. I watched the bits of mortar fall. “That is my intention.” “And mine. My hope. But a thin one.” “Don’t doubt us, or we are lost.” “Fitz, my love, that is the problem. I do not doubt Bee’s dreams at all.